AustLit

'Writers seeking publication are often advised to have an ‘elevator pitch’ ready. These succinct book-hooks are designed to jag a trapped publisher in the wink between a lift door closing and reopening. Has this insane tactic ever actually worked? No idea. But it’s fun to imagine the CEO of Big Sales Books, on their way up to another corner-office day of tallying cricket memoir profits, blindsided by three of the looniest elevator pitches imaginable. A novel narrated by Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles! A faux political memoir about a prime minister and his shark vendetta! An academic satire cum historical mystery mashup told largely through the – wait, wait, wait! – footnotes of a PhD thesis! That CEO will probably take the stairs next time, but kudos to the independent publishers who saw the potential in these experimental works and their début authors. Whatever the path of weird Australian writing, long may it find its way to these pages.' (Introduction)

'In Angela O’Keeffe’s debut novel, Night Blue, the reader is asked to suspend their disbelief and invest in the consciousness of an inanimate object, Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles. The painting’s story is well-known. There was outrage in 1973 when this colossal work of American abstract expressionism was purchased by the Whitlam government. Some thought Australia should be investing in its own artists. Others scorned its experiment and its cost.' (Introduction)