Professional Book Nerds - Chris Hammer interview

In 2021 Australian author, Chris Hammer, was interviewed for the Professional Book Nerds podcast in America. The main book under discussion was Scrublands published in 2018. The location for the book is the western Rivierina. Twelve months previously five people had been killed and a journalist arrives in the town to investigate how the community is coping. He then realises that there is much more to investigate.

Chris Hammer, a journalist, writes novels for his own satisfaction. He doesn't necessarily plot the entire book in advance but may have four or five story-lines which hopefully will evolve into the final book. On one occasion he rewrote the ending of a book twice before he was satisfied with the plot.

Chris says that there are two types of writers of novels - the Plotter and the Pantser (writing by the seat of your pants). He says that his best ideas come when he is doing something else such as exercising. In his writing he concentrates on his characters and how they are being affected by events in the story-line. He enjoys adding some humour and attempts to create an immersive book for the reader. He wants to show how the characters are coping with disruptive events and is not interested in just producing a novel of fact finding. He finds it liberating not to have to continually check facts when he writes but can let his imagination tell the story.

As a journalist, Chris knows how the media works and can therefore add additional colour to the story from previous work experiences. To be a writer you have to love the process of writing. Readers of books read for different experiences. This is why books endure - when they allow people to enjoy the world that they enter when reading a good book.

Professional Book Nerds - Ann Cleeves interview

Ann Cleeves is best known as the author of Vera and Shetland series of crime novels though in an interview on the Professional Book Nerds podcast she admitted to having written many novels before she became known as a famous writer. For years most of the publicity for the books that she wrote was when she visited libraries to publicise her books. Then after twenty years of writing without much commercial success the public discovered Vera.

The book being discussed in the podcast is The Darkest Evening, the ninth book in the Vera series published in 2021. Driving home in a storm Vera discovers an abandoned car by the side of the road. When she investigates she discovers a young child in the back of the car. Needing assistance she takes the child to a large house nearby. The house is known to her as members of her father's family live there. Why is the child in the back of the car alone and what has happened to the child's mother?

In the podcast Ann Cleeves discusses the importance of place in her novels. She especially likes the comparison of people who own land with the people who live on it. In The Darkest Evening the reader learns more about Vera's early life with her father.

For Ann Cleeves family and community are also important in her books. The author likes to play with relationships of both major and minor characters as the story evolves. She likes writing about ordinary people and how they would react in stressful circumstances.  Compassion is important in the Vera novels. Vera is written as a real person. In The Darkest Evening there are themes of kindness and honesty and the importance of keeping family together.

Although when beginning a book there are plot lines, the story evolves as the writing progresses. However when reading a book, each reader will experience it differently.

Also in the podcast the importance of the editing of her books was discussed. She also discussed how in times of trouble such as the Great Depression and the Second World War people tended to turn to books, including crime fiction, to escape. This might help to explain why in the current uncertain times readers are devouring crime fiction.

Professional Book Nerds - Denzil Meyrick interview

My local library now has a series of podcasts available featuring 30 minute interviews with a variety of authors under the title - Professional Book Nerds. There are 425 of these podcasts currently available via the library catalogue. Being American podcasts, most of the interviews are with American authors however I did find a selection of podcasts with writers of books that I have read.

The first podcast that I listened to was with Scottish author Denzil Meyrick who just happens to be one of my favourite authors of crime novels. In this podcast he is asked about the writing of Whiskey in Small Glasses, the first novel in the DCI Daley series set in Kinloch. Denzil Meyrick explained that Kinloch is based on the small town of Campbeltown in Scotland. 

His writing of the DCI Daley series is based on his background in the police force providing him with an understanding of how policing really works in Scotland. He has also worked as a journalist. The variety of characters in his books play an important part in telling the story. DCI Daley is an important character in the books but other characters including Sergeant Scott and many of the residents of Kinloch are important to the telling of the story. Sense of community is a focal point making Kinloch also one of the main characters of the books.

Denzil Meyrick was then asked about the importance of libraries and he stressed that libraries are the centres of a community.  He expressed his concern about how libraries are being neglected in some parts of Britain and how they need to be protected as a valuable source for all the community.

Books of Denzil Meyrick.

RHSV podcasts now online

On 30 May the RHSV podcast pages were connected to the RHSV website. Initially four podcasts were included with a fifth added shortly afterwards - RHSV Podcasts.

The first podcasts made available online were RHSV lectures. A walking tour guide is also being prepared.

The talks were recorded using a clip on microphone connected to a small digital recorder. The files were edited in Audacity, saved as MP3 files and further compressed using MP3Tweak. Realising that many of the members live in country areas without broadband it is necessary to keep the files as small as possible.

An RSS button is provided enabling users wanting to use RSS to cut and paste the URL into their podcast or feed-reading software.

A Help page providing basic information about podcasts is provided.

Users can listen to audio files directly online or download the audio file to listen to on their computer or protable digital player.

Undertaking this project was a challenge and to some extent trial and error until a system was devised that appears to work on the most commonly used browsers.

A record of the project was recorded in the Information technology and local history blog.

#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

Placing audio files on the Internet for users to download is another useful way for sharing information and resources. Thanks to the popularity of ipods (and other portable devices for playing audio files) podcasts and podcasting have become the terms for describing this process.

Podcasting directories are useful aids for locating the ever expanding number of podcasts on the web. For this exercise I used Podcast.net - The Podcast Directory and searched the Category - Society and Culture - History where I found a series of a series of audio files relating to Australia and its social history - Open your eyes to Australia by Jim Low

I also clicked the RSS button to add the feed for this site to Bloglines in the History folder.

I first tried placing audio files on a website a couple of years ago when it was suggested that as the RHSV was involved with the Victorian Folklife Fund it would be a good idea to include a link to song from one of the winning entries. Technically this is not difficult to do however not all browsers recognise the code used for placing the audio file online. What works in Windows Explorer does not necessarily work in Mozilla Firefox.

This year the RHSV received a grant to include podcasts of lectures on the web. Currently I am using Audacity to edit the audio file prepared by a RHSV member of a heritage walk in West Melbourne - this will be our first podcast and hopefully will be online in the next week or two along with a map showing the route of the walk prepared using Google Maps.

To experiment with placing audio files online to be accessed by Mozilla as well as Windows Explorer and also to experiment with RSS feeds I prepared a test podcast - Dunk Island - where I included code which should work in both these browsers (and hopefully others).

Libraries can use podcasts to provide information / lectures for people unable to attend. The State Library did this for the family history seminar held in August - A Family History Feast

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

At the Museums Australia conference in Canberra in May there were a number of papers on social networking (using web 2.0 features) in the museum sector. One of the speakers was from the Powerhouse Museum and he described a number of their projects including allowing users of the online catalogue to create their own tags (or user keyword) that they felt helped locate items in the collection thus creating a separate facility to search user produced keywords as well as the conventional museum headings. The rationale behind providing the two different search options is to help "bridge the 'semantic gap' between the language of the museum and that of the user".
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/browsekeywords.php

The Powerhouse Museum, in its online sources section, also provides podcasts and videos on a range of topics as well as a blog associated with an expedition held at the museum - "Walking the Wall follows the 3000 kilometre hiking journey of Brendan Fletcher and Emma Nicholas along the Great Wall of China. Walking the Wall is associated with the Great Wall Of China exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney".

The discussions on museums using web 2.0 stressed the need for the users of websites to not be just passive observers. Increasingly visitors to museums are online visitors only, especially as people from any place in the world may visit a museum website but may not necessarily be able to physically visit the museum itself. Museums and galleries when designing websites are increasingly adding features to involve the online visitors in exploring the museum collections and exhibitions online.

Libraries can also use features of library 2.0 to enhance the experience of visiting the library website as an information resource. Library 2.0 allows for greater interaction between library staff and patrons for providing, sharing and creating information resources. The argument about search terms used by patrons not necessarily being in the same form as thesauruses used in libraries (terms for an object or concept also differ from country to country and even state to state) also applies to libraries. Creating a blog or a wiki for a specific purpose - subject area (local history, genealogy), book reviews etc - is another way libraries can encourage user involvement in the websites. Making podcasts of talks and information sessions available online allows those unable to attend an event access to the information.

The publication of library catalogues and access to other databases on the Internet has made the library available to patrons at any time including the ability to reserve and renew material online. The inclusion of web 2.0 and subsequent developments on websites will rapidly increase interaction between patons and the library and create an interactive information hub.