AustLit

'Harriet Chandler didn’t make it onto the list of best novels of 2015 as far as I know. That may be because it was published in 2014, when it didn’t make the list either, or because its author, Moya Costello, calls it a ‘novella’, in her own redefinition of the term as a short, intense mix of ‘prose poem and prose fiction’, rather than a novel as such. At any rate, its appearance escaped notice, like some shy bush animal. The closest I can find to a reference in the mainstream media is Xu Qin’s piece in Shanghai Daily, ‘Profile of an inspiring woman’. Harriet Chandler is the first book from Short Odds Publications, another avatar of the author, whose act of self-publishing may also have got in the way. As Anna Couani explains, Costello, like herself, was ‘in the Sydney Women Writers’ Workshop (aka The No Regrets Group) in the 70’s and 80’s … [and] shared the feminist values of the group’ which included, in Costello’s words, ‘a radical critique of the industry context of their creative work’. Taking the means of production and dissemination into your own hands through self-publication is a logical extension of this spirit in technologically as well as politically changed times. It throws a spanner into the established system of book marketing and promotional recognition. The Prime Minister’s Literary Award, for example, makes it explicit that ‘self-published books are not eligible’, even if to self-publish successfully requires a high degree of editorial, design and book-producing skills, collaboratively integrated, as well as the writing talent.' (Introduction)