AustLit

'A fraudster with a fantasy-prone personality poses as a Tahitian Prince while stealing vast sums of money from an Australian government department. His romantic friendship with an environmental journalist shakes up his views and he secretly donates his fortune to causes for environmental protection. Loosely based on actual events, The Fake Prince is an topical 21st-century fable from Australia's New World City - Brisbane - that will draw you in to this upbeat ant-hero and keep you smiling as you journey with Ariki from poverty to wealth, thief to celebrity, consumer addict, and fool in love - until he discovers needs more important than his own.' (Publication summary)

'Synott reflects on the poetry published in Social Alternatives journal in the last forty years. His appointment as poetry editor of the journal from 2002 to 2012 followed in the footsteps of Laurence Burke, John Knight and Wendy Morgan. Their editorial work established that Social Alternatives was not only a publication of critical articles on politics, social movements and cultural debates but a journal that presented poetry from poets involved in those social movements. They published poetry that expressed the voices of poets engaged in the anti-nuclear weapons, anti-conscription and anti-Vietnam war campaigns, the campaigns for women's liberation, the campaigns for Aboriginal Land rights, the movement for environmental protection, and other new left analyses and proposals for change towards a communitarian and ecologically sustainable world.'  (Publication abstract)

'This memoir of a waterside worker through the 20th century is presented as an autobiography by Wal Stubbings but, if the text is the measure of authorship, much of the credit for the memoir must go to Lesley Synge, who is rightly credited as 'co-author'. It appears that the project to produce a memoir of Wal Stubbings' life and career emerged out of a general family history in 2000 to which he contributed a section. As Synge mentions in her foreword, this autobiographical piece became the 'master document' for the subsequent memoir. With this, she gathered information from further writings by Wal Stubbings, along with many stories written about him by family members, and other archival material including photographs, interviews and newspaper cuttings. Indeed, it was a complex task absorbing all this material and structuring it into a chronological narrative, in the first person voice of a man whose presence and perspectives on life were powerfully present in the source material. Synge has done an excellent job of editing and writing. She has presented us with a book that is accessible, well-organised and a pleasure to read.' (Introduction)