This year’s Banned Books Week will be held from 24 September through 1 October. Banned Books Week, in celebration of the freedom to read, started in 1982 due to a surge in challenges to certain books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,000 books have been challenged since 1982. For more info on Banned Books Week, click here.

The 10 most challenged titles of 2010 were:

And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sex education, sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

The Hunger Games (series), by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: sexaully explicit, violence, unsuited to age group

Lush, by Natasha Friend
Reasons: drugs, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint

Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit

Twilight (series), by Stephanie Meyer
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence, unsuited to age group

In Australia, the banning of books doesn’t happen quite as often, but if you’re interested in which books have been deemed unsuitable for Australian readers, you can browse the Banned in Australia bibliography, which includes approximately 500 titles.

Helen Asher was a post-WWII German refugee from fascism. Along with her husband Mervyn, she was deeply committed to the artistic and cultural life of their adoptive country, Australia, and both were active in literary circles in Sydney.

Mrs Asher specified that the bequest be directed solely to the creation of an award to be won or received by a female author of a literary work which carries an anti-war message or theme.

The shortlisted titles are:

• Swamplands (Van Badham, play)
• Tales from a Mountain City (Quynh Dao, Odyssey Books)
• Ruin (Roberta Lowing, Interactive Press)
• Pirate Rain (Jennifer Maiden, Giramondo)
• The Old School (P M Newton, Penguin)

The winner of this year’s award, worth $10,000, will be announced on 2 September at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Odyssey Books is giving away a book pack, containing a copy of Subliminal Dust, Foley Russel and that Poor Girl, and the launching-soon Eve’s Harvest. To enter our giveaway, sign up to our newsletter using the form in the bottom right of this screen. Only sign-ups this weekend will be entered into the draw.

Then head on over to Oh My Books! for the next giveaway. To see all the blogs participating in BlogFest 2010, visit the organiser’s website: A Journey of Books.

Happy BlogFest!

Featuring:

* Pooja Mittal – Subliminal Dust (Odyssey Books)

* Josephine Rowe – How a Moth becomes a Boat (Hunter Publishers)

* Paul Haines – X (Cour De Lion books)

* Jonathan Griffiths – The Road Behind (Vanark Press)

* Corinne Fenton – Flame Stands Waiting (Black Dog Books)

* Anna Dusk – Inhuman (Transit Lounge)

Plus the literary quiz and book prizes. Too easy to get to. And it’s all free.

This Saturday 11 September, from 1pm – 2pm, at the Flinders Street end of The Atrium, next to the Federation Square book market.

Brought to you by SPUNC & The Wheeler Centre

For a long time, I’ve been a huge fan of writing communities such as WEbook. It’s a great place for writers to post their work and get fast feedback, collaborate with other writers and maybe even find a literary agent. We posted a project on WEbook last year to gather submissions for our Eve’s Harvest anthology (available 1 September) and were thrilled to be able to publish a few stories submitted by WEbookers.

Worthy of Publishing is another great writing community, and I especially like this one because of the connection to Australian and New Zealand writers. This site is quite strongly geared to connecting writers directly with publishers, and connecting authors with readers once their book is published.

As a publisher, I find both sites incredibly useful for discovering new authors and to be able to preview writing without having to write those horrible rejection letters that are inevitable when you open the door to unsolicited submissions.

Then today I discovered Pubmission via Twitter and immediately signed up as a Beta tester. What I like about the concept so far is that potential submissions come to me in a digest format once a week (I picked Friday morning) and I can then preview those that jump out at me, saving me a lot of time not having to read unsuitable manuscripts. Authors can submit directly to Odyssey via Pubmission, and submit to other publishers at the same time. So even if the book isn’t right for Odyssey, it could get picked up by a publisher the author hasn’t considered or even heard of.

I’d love to hear from any authors who have been involved with any writing communities or slush pile services, and what your experiences have been like.

StormSage Central is an Australian based creative collective with a global membership base. Their mission is to “deliver a quality, contemporary, free site; that will enable easy networking for and promotion of creative talents from around the world.”

Odyssey Books has come on board as an SSC sponsor, starting from Contest Creative 6. We will be donating book packs, vouchers, free manuscript appraisals, and various other prizes to contest winners. All members of StormSage Central are welcome to compete in the Contest Creative, and membership to the site is free. Visit: http://sites.google.com/site/stormsagecentralmembersarea/ for more info

What’s SPUNC?

The Small Press Underground Networking Community (SPUNC) is a representative body for small and independent Australian publishers. It was formed in 2006 to promote independent publishing and support the principle of diversity within the publishing industry as a vital component of Australian literary culture. More…

We’re really excited to be a part of this network as it means greater visibility of the Odyssey imprint as a small publisher in the marketplace, increased sales opportunities for the authors we represent, valuable networking opportunities, and it will allow us to play an active role in improving the interests of the small and independent publishing sector.

An open-planned initiative to enable readers from all over the world to connect with the Aussie author of the day via Twitter, to chat and answer questions and field discussion on Australian writing.

The Tweet an Australian Author website is at http://austliterature.net/tweet/

How does it work? Using a tweetchat by following a specific hashtag (in this instance it will be #TweetAnAustAuthor), it will be a lot like hanging out at your favourite cafe or pub and watching a conversation unfold between author and readers.

Watch the AustLiterature website for more details soon.