Current Project - The City of Quartz (a magical realist novel)
Dr. Ian Irvine
Writing Teacher, Author, Musician/Songwriter, Poet, Editor and Education Manager
This is the cover design for my second novel 'The City of Quartz' - a book exploring themes such as the role of creativity in our lives; conflict between atheistic and sacred worldviews; historic scenarios that could have led to a self-empowered Aboriginal nation entering modernity on its own terms; the corrosive affects of Neo-Liberal greed on Australia's creative community; and much else besides. I'm very happy with the design work - by Peter Wiseman of Media Australia. The novel will be part of 'Songs of the Interstitium', a transmedia project featuring 4 other novels, original music by a band from a 'parallel universe' :), poetry publications, performance events, a web hub as well as essays and creative non-fiction pieces. The next task, as the novel goes through its final edits, is to interest independent publishers in the novel component of the TM story.
Writing Teacher, Author, Musician/Songwriter, Poet, Editor and Education Manager
8 年Thanks Enzo - the novel is going through its final edits over the next month. How is that longer poetry project of yours going? Hopefully it is also close to publication. Bestwishes Ian
POET, PLAYWRIGHT. at GLOBE PLAYERS
8 年thats GREAT Ian. i will put this on my facebook. saluti amico
Writing Teacher, Author, Musician/Songwriter, Poet, Editor and Education Manager
8 年Naureen - thanks for your comment. The story unfolds on Central Victoria's gold fields and of course the huge quartz reefs from Ballarat to Wedderburn yielded vast quantities of gold which unfortunately brought - via the 1850s gold rush - great suffering to the various indigenous tribes of the region. Thus quartz and gold are historically symbolic on many levels and some of that symbolism is explored in the novel. Aboriginal people also value quartz - especially crystal quartz (there are a number of ancient mine sites across the region) - and, yes, used it in various ways. It is no stretch to say that the ancient foundations of the arts/story telling/ cultural transmission etc. on this continent are rooted in the idea of a transpersonal dimension to quartz. Quartz is also fundamental to analog computing - and perhaps will be fundamental to quantum computing. Something explored in the novel.
Director Communications at LumenSoft Technologies
8 年Dr. Ian Irvine, this sounds interesting. Like the title ‘City of Quartz’. Google says quartz was used in the rain rituals of aborigines in Australia, wondering what those rituals were like! All the best for the project.