Michelle Lovric

		September 2008 Buzz, the 2008 Templar Press anthology, will feature poems by three writers from the Clink Street workshop, Pamela Johnson, Geraldine Paine and Sue Ehrhardt . All three will be reading from their works in the anthology at the Derwent Literary Festival in October. Geraldine Paine has been shortlisted for Canterbury Poet of the Year 2008. September Books Philipp Blom To Have and To Hold, An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting Michael Chabon The Jewish Policemen’s Union Hand Luggage Only - The anthology of the shortlisted poems and winners of the 2007 International Sonnet Competition, which includes work by Clink Street writers, Geraldine Paine and Pam Johnson, now available from Amazon. Recommended websites Relief from the searing heat of Ferragosto – Venice iced over in 1929. Click here to view the video. http://wordsunlimited.typepad.com Welcome to the blogosphere! Novelist and poet Pam Johnson has just started a blog that muses on the process of writing amid the process of living. www.venessia.com A site of cartoons, observations and Veneziana. This cartoon (left) from the site shows a journalist interviewing the architect Santiago Calatrava, whose controversy-dogged bridge is finally supposed to open in the next month. The cartoonist shows a bridge that doubles up on itself and returns to Venice. The architect explains to the interviewer that this is the Mayor’s idea for stopping the depopulation of Venice.
One of Adriana Rocca's Multitudes paintings.		August 2008 Michelle Lovric was one of the judges of the semi-final round of The Institute of Ideas and Pfizer Debating Matters National Final 2008, held at the Wellcome Trust on July 5th. The subject was ‘Is the West Unfairly Demonising China?’ www.debatingmatters.com PETA has offered a reward of £1000 for information leading to the discovery of who drowned HMS’s Belfast’s ship’s cat, Kilo, in February this year. New CCTV footage of the suspects can be seen on the SE1 website. Recommended websites www.adrianarocca.com Adriana Rocca, whose studio is on Giudecca, does wonderful paintings of crowd scenes, in some ways rather reminiscent of Tintoretto's cast-of-thousands apocalypses - except that Adriana Rocca's crowds are from the world over, and gather together serenely. Each individual, even from the back of the head, is someone completely different. The artist was born in Argentina, but has lived in Venice for twelve years. florizel.canalblog.com A beautiful French website about paper, fabric and things-in-boxes: many happy hours to be spent reading and admiring this site. August Books Nick Green Cat’s Paw Albertine La Rumeur de Venise J.C. Brown Carnival Masks of Venice – A Photographic Essay A vintage quotation Yes, it is very difficult to believe in Venice, most of all when one is in Venice. New York Times, December 1, 1901
		July 2008 Venice’s Mayor Massimo Cacciari has launched a poster campaign to ask people to drink the excellent tap-water in Venice, thereby avoiding the pollution caused by trucking in bottles of the designer stuff. Michelle Lovric has written a diary piece on this subject for the website of the English Writers in Italy. See www.englishwritersinitaly.com July Books Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Liz Jensen The Ninth Life of Louis Drax Rose Tremain The Road Home Recommended websites www.evamariaschoen.de a German artist who works with ink and fingers to create unusual and exquisite art. www.albumdivenezia.it an archive of private and professional photographs of the terrible flood of 1966 This photograph from the Album di Venezia archive shows a frightened cat, drenched and trapped by the floodwater. It was taken in Castello by an anonymous photographer on November 4th, 1966.
		June 2008 Reminder, Diary Date Michelle Lovric will be discussing Venice and writing about Venice with the Venetian author Tiziano Scarpa at the Italian Cultural Institute in London on July 10th. Tiziano’s Venice is a Fish has just been published in English. Details here 7pm, Thursday 10th July Tickets £5, free for members Booking essential on 0207 396 4406 June Books Edward Leeves Leaves from a Victorian Diary Rumer Godden Pippa Passes Baron Corvo The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole L. & L. M. Ragg Things Seen in Venice P. B. M. Allan The Book-Hunter at Home Jules Verne 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas Cesare Zangirolami Storie delle chiese dei monasteri delle scuole di Venezia rapinate e distrutte da Napoleone Bonaparte

Photographs by Giordano Russo and Aurelia S. Palmarin
		May 2008 Not to miss: Exhibition of mosaics in Venice. Susan Adams Nickerson’s exhibition of exquisite, poignant mosaics opens on May 10th at the Giudecca 795 gallery. The artist plays on three themes interwoven by the media of found objects, mosaics, ink and mortar. Venice is evoked in the theme of relics and reliquaries: small precious objects caught in glass. Literature is evoked by words in mosaic form: letters as tesserae, words as painting, and painting as words. The rhythms of the spoken word are preserved, expressing the artist’s conviction that writing is in itself art. Finally, the artist brings into play the nature of her own medium, the mosaic itself: an interplay of colour and texture, light and concealment, and softness and permanence. Exhibition dates: May 10 – 1 June 2008 Hours of opening: Tuesday to Friday 15.30 – 20.00 Saturday and Sunday 10.00 – 12.00 and 15.30 – 20.00 Closed Mondays. Admission free. The gallery is located midway between Hotel Hilton Stucky and Harry's Dolci. Take ACTV boat lines 41, 42, or 2 to "Palanca"; at the Palanca boat stop, turn right and walk along the fondamenta. After the Sant' Eufemia bridge, continue to number 795. Tel (+39) 041 7241182 / (+39) 340 8798327 Fax (+39) 041 989614 www.giudecca795.com Professor Giordano Russo has written this essay on her work. More jewelled Venice Last month Vicki Ambery-Smith’s Venetian ring caused quite a stir: so for May another jeweller, this time a native Venetian, whose work features natural forms and symbolic animals and fruits including many that can be found in Venetian paintings. A lizard, for example, is supposed to have the grace and wisdom of a snake without its venom. The pomegranate symbolises the unity of all the separate aspects of the Church, as well as fertility, and also resurrection. The scallop shell is the sign of pilgrimage. The Moor of course features in many places in Venice. There is much debate about the ethnic origins of the classic Venetian Moor, that one finds carved in wood, picked out in jewels, on door handles ('mascaron') all over the town, and of course immortalised in Shakespeare’s Othello. Are they from Morea? Is it Morocco? Or are the Moors of a middle-eastern provenance? Carla Mattea Piccoli graduated in architecture at the Accademia di Belli Arti di Venezia and has worked in jewellery and graphic design. Since 1994 she’s worked in collaboration with the antiquario Oreste Cagnato, whose Antiquus shops are in San Samuele and San Vio. These jewels, reminiscent of Lalique’s creations but with a definite Venetian flavour, can be seen in the shops. More pictures are available on request from info@antiquus.it

		New hotel in Venice A beautiful new hotel has opened inside a well-known small palace on the Grand Canal. www.palazzostern.com Diary date Michelle Lovric will be discussing Venice and writing about Venice with the Venetian author Tiziano Scarpa at the Italian Cultural Institute in London on July 10th. Tiziano’s Venice is a Fish has just been published in English. May books Jerffold M. Packard Farewell in Splendour, The Death of Queen Victoria and her Age. Charles G. Leland Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches, 1899 Recommended websites Italian Cultural Institute www.icilondon.esteri.it
		April 2008 Il Contatore dei Veneziani: Venetian-meter The campaigning group Venessia.com has come up with a piquant way to mark the exodus of native Venetians from their city. On March 21st Venessia.com launched an illuminated digital display in the window of the historic Morelli pharmacy in San Bartolomeo. This display gives the number of Venetians in the city – on that day 60, 704. The display will be updated every week, using figures supplied by the Comune. The population of Venice has declined from a high of 175,000 in 1951. Venice on your finger Vicki Ambery-Smith makes extraordinary architectural jewellery. Venice features strongly in her work. Here is her latest ring, which shows the area around the church of Miracoli that was the home of the artist Cecilia Cornaro in Michelle Lovric’s novel Carnevale. Cecilia Cornaro also joined the cast of The Remedy and will make another appearance in the current work-in-progress The Book of Human Skin. This sequence of photos shows the initial drawings, and then the unburnished work in progress and then the final ring, which is different from each angle. See more of Vicki Ambery-Smith’s jewellery on her website: www.vickiamberysmith.co.uk Initial drawings Work in progress, before the bridges are added. The finished ring Seagull Fracas If you don't see a video window above click here to view the screaming seagulls video. There appear to be many names for seagulls in Venice, and several breeds of bird. Most dominant (vocally at least) are the ‘gabbiani reali’ or ‘royal seagulls. Is this the Yellow-legged gull Larus cacchinnans? The old Venetian name for the huge, aggressive gull is ‘Magòga’ (plural ‘Magòghe’). The word for ‘wizard’ in Italian is ‘Mago’ and some Italian believe that the cold glance of a gull has a magical power. Then there are the ‘cocai’, singular ‘cocal’. Some sources say that this Venetian name refers to a smaller, less aggressive gull, of a different breed to the Magoghe, perhaps the black-headed gull Larus ridibundus. Others say the ‘cocal’ is merely a youngster of the ‘Magoga’ breed. Yet another source says that it is the masculine of the ‘Magoga’. So which breed are the Magoghe? And which the smaller birds? Mediterranean Gull Larus melanocephalus? Little Gull Larus minutes? Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus? Slender-billed Gull Larus genei? Common Gull Larus canus? Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus? Herring Gull Larus argentatus? Yellow-legged Gull Larus cachinnans ? Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus? Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla? If any reader has further information to contribute on this subject, please contact this site. Meanwhile, William Dean Howells, in his inimitable Venetian Life, speaks of how the seagulls give voice to the full desolation of winter in the town: ...but the only creatures which seemed really to enjoy the weather were the seagulls. These birds, which flock into the city in vast numbers at the first approach of cold, and, sailing up and down the canals between the palaces, bring to the dwellers in the city a full sense of mid-ocean forlornness and desolation, now rioted on the savage winds, with harsh cries, and danced upon the waves of the bitter brine, with a clamorous joy that had something eldritch and unearthly in it.
		April Books Giuseppe Tassini Curiosità Veneziane Tiziano Scarpa Venice is a Fish Tiziano Scarpa Corpo Recommended Websites www.venessia.com Venetian website of information, pictures and campaigns (see news above). www.newsontherialto.org Cultural exchange for Venetian scholars. www.retemediterranea.com Pioneering a museum of the lagoon. www.italiantalk.com A London-based service offering translation from English, French and Spanish into Italian.
		March 2008 Writing Notes The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, writing in 1983, reflected on the different kinds of relationships that a writer can have with his or her work. The novelist Juan Carlos Onetti once said that the difference between him and me as writers was that I had a matrimonial relationship with literature whereas he had an adulterous relationship with it. Venetian Curiosities The parish of San Samuele, which today includes the churches of San Samuele, of Santo Stefano and the deconsecrated San Vidal (left) was the subject of a vulgar song at one time: Contrada piccola, grande bordel; Senza ponti, cattive campane, Omini becchi e donne putane. Small as it is, it’s a great big brothel Without bridges, its bells all jangly The men are cuckolds and the women whores … Congratulations! Poets from the Clink Street workshop have been recognised this past month. Carol DeVaughn has won second place in the Torriano Poets competition, in which Geraldine Paine was Recommended, and Pam Johnson and Geraldine Paine have been shortlisted in The Open Poetry Sonnet Competition March Books Octavio Paz Sor Juana, or The traps of faith. 1988 Stephen Haliczer Between Exaltation and Infamy, 2002 Kathryn Burns Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru, 1999 Susan E. Dinan and Debra Meyers (eds) Women and Religion in Old and New Worlds, 2001 Martin Luis Daughters of the Conquistadores, 1983 Mita Choudhury Convents and Nuns in Eighteenth-century French Politics and Culture, 2004
Happy New Year! January 1st 2008: the sun catches the halo of an angel on the church of San Vidal, Venice. Photo: Graham Morrison		February 2008 Michelle Lovric was interviewed by Daphne Guinness for the Sydney Morning Herald on her research into museums around the world. The piece was published in the January 1st edition. Click here to read it. A thought-provoking comment on the British book industry by A.L. Kennedy, on winning the Costa prize for a best novel: It's such a funny climate at the moment. Getting this does mean you're at least more likely to be in the bookshops. There are greater numbers of a smaller range of books, we are trying to disassemble our culture and normally only an occupying force would do that. I'm more annoyed at things from the point of view of a British reader than a writer. February Books Indra Sinha Animal’s People Linda Newbery Catcall Hilary Mantel Beyond Black E.H. Ruddock Homœopathic Vade Mecum Medical & Surgical, 1893 Pierce Egan Real Life In London, Volumes I and II Or, The Rambles And Adventures Of Bob Tallyho, Esq., And His Cousin, The Hon. Tom Dashall, Through The Metropolis; Exhibiting A Living Picture Of Fashionable Characters, Manners, And Amusements In High And Low Life, 1821 Unknown Sinks of London Laid Open - A Pocket Companion for the Uninitiated, to Which is Added a Modern Flash Dictionary Containing all the Cant Words, Slang Terms, and Flash Phrases Now in Vogue, with a List of the Sixty Orders of Prime Coves, 1848 Recommended Websites www.catsmeatshop.blogspot.com A blog about Victorian London from the excellent novelist and historian Lee Jackson, the creator of www.victorianlondon.org, also recommended www.venetianlegends.it Alberto Toso Fei’s site with ghost stories and legends about Venice.
		January 2008 Michelle Lovric has become a consultant editor for The Writers' Workshop which offers manuscript assessment and editorial services to first-time or unpublished novelists and poets. For more details see the website: www.writersworkshop.co.uk Recommended Websites www.sarahsalway.com Award-winning novelist and short-story writer with a fascinating blog. www.patriciaguy.com Wine and food writer and expert on the ladies of Sherlock Holmes. www.churchesofvenice.co.uk A new website from the creator of www.fictionalcities.com: a much- needed English-language guide to Venice's churches. January Books Alexei Sayle The Dog-Catcher Michelle Paver Wolf Brother Mary Hamer Incest, a new perspective Phillis Cunnington and Anne Buck Children’s Costume in England 1300-1900