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Throwing
Matches at Icebergs: The Syntax Magazine Travel Anthology
edited by Romy Ash and George
Foster. Syntax
Publications, Brisbane, 2003. ISBN 064642339 8. RRP
$14.95, available from Syntax Magazine <www.syntaxpublications.com.au/orderform.pdf>. |
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Syntax
Magazine, a free, monthly, street press magazine showcasing
young and emerging writers and artists, burst onto the
literary scene with their edgy-but-quality publication
in August last year. The editors, Romy Ash and George
Foster, state their mission is "to publish young and emerging
writers and support their development through a high profile
publication opportunity", and currently distribute the
magazine to a readership of 15,000 in and around Brisbane,
the Sunshine Coast, regional Queensland and Northern New
South Wales.
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Keeping
up the momentum is Syntax's first foray into
themed monograph publishing with issue 9 of the magazine
published as Throwing Matches at Icebergs, a travel
anthology. Edited by Ash and Foster, this volume features
the work of 14 emerging authors and one photographer to
take a fresh and expansive look at travel, breaking the
pervasive mould set by many prominent established travel
writers such as Paul Theroux and Peter Mayle. Among the
pleasingly eclectic mix of short stories, prose-play,
poetry and creative nonfiction, there are examples of
high drama, angst and pain as well as liberal dashes of
irony and humour. And there is a heady serve of information
- as in all the best travel writing, the reader is taken
on a series of journeys to unknown spaces, or those we
are pleased to revisit.
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The
emerging authors and photographer represented in Throwing
Matches at Icebergs are a wide-ranging group, some
of whom hail from Syntax's home state, Queensland,
but others who live, and work, in Melbourne, Sydney and
Perth, as well as regional areas of New South Wales and
one author from South Africa. If travel is, as the dictionary
posits, "to go from one place to another; make a journey
of some length" the expeditions these younger authors
represent are just as varied, with explorations as far
afield as South America to as close to home as walking
to the local shops.
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James
Halford's 'A Driftwood Man' explores inner and external
journeys, setting his story in a detention centre while
the gut-wrenching action of Tim Milfull's 'Get Thee To
a Nunnery' takes place in a different kind of prison -
one for serious criminals in La Paz in Bolivia. Kate Watson's
characters in 'Priceless' risk their lives for a good
story, Colin Delaney's compatriots get smashed and married
in his hilarious and insightful 'Beer and Betrothing in
Las Vegas' and, in 'The Thin Little Maggot', Lorelei Vashti
Waite describes the dangers waiting around every corner
in the suburbs, not to mention those for smokers. Blythe
Seinor's 'Me and Gus Dur' relates the author's frustrating
attempt to interview the sleepy former President of Indonesia,
Abdurrahman Wahid (aka Gus Dur) while, in great contrast,
Ezra Szandala's 'Post Pineapple' is a photo-essay on the
subjects of movement and change.
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A
self-declared "Indian born outside of India", Sreedhevi
Ramachandran writes of visiting the subcontinent in 'Of
Kings and Beggars' and more interior explorations in a
series of poems. Liesl Jobson's 'The Banana Salami Ride'
details a drive through Johannesburg with a surprising,
and uplifting, outcome. In contrast, Carly-Jay Metcalf's
'An Infinite Trip of Sadness and Regret' tells of waiting
for rain and finding the (sad) truth in the moment. Miles
Hitchcock's 'Cup Day' describes a bus tour through "a
visual loop of video stores, supermarkets, porno outlets,
used car yards, sprinklers on fat green lawns, fast food
drive throughs" as the narrator eavesdrops on the life
(and low life) all around. In 'The Theory of Radical Social
Divestment', Gavin Gee-Clough's central character finds
his life is "most comfortable" while travelling, and Glenn
Davies and Nigel Savden complete the book with a highly
original and witty meditation on the nexus between science
and travel, and the power of language.
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All
in all, this is a most engaging, stimulating and well-edited
collection allowing a series of fresh new voices to be
heard.
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Throwing
Matches at Icebergs was published with assistance
from The Foundation
For Young Australians and is available through Syntax
Publications.
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