It’s hard to believe, but a little over two years ago Kill Your Darlings – pale and naive – had the audacity to launch into the Australian literary community. It wasn’t our first issue that marked this date, but our first Melbourne fundraiser, a literary trivia night, at the Pumphouse in Carlton. It was a modest but happy affair, and we managed to raise a good portion of funds to go towards the printing and contributor costs for the inaugural issue. The remaining money required to put together the issue came from the KYD team’s own piggy banks.

We’re all still pale (probably more so) but we’re certainly little less naive about the machinations of independent publishing. To be sure, it’s a model we love – there’s flexibility, innovation and diversity, as well as the thrill of the daily challenge to get new and engaging content out there. Like most indie publishers, KYD has never been about profits or making millions. We’re all about celebrating and rewarding quality writing from new, emerging and established Australian writers – writing that bucks trends, is fresh and little bit sassy; stories and commentary and opinions that speak to a diverse and intelligent reader. You.

While we’re in it for the love of it, and we’re having a ball bringing out the quarterly issue and daily web content, we’re not going to kid anyone: it’s tough going. The margins for this kind of venture are very small.

This year, we’ve been lucky enough to be supported by the Australia Council, who awarded us funds for our contributor payments. And while this alleviated certain pressures, there are many other costs involved. There are also other aspects of Kill Your Darlings we’d like to make more appealing to our readers and subscribers, such as bringing our event series to states outside of Victoria and South Australia; organising seminars and workshops across all genres; participation in festivals around the country. But highest on our agenda is the desire to start paying our online writers for their content, because we believe passionately in professional and financial recognition of writing as vocation. We’re not currently in the position to do that, but we hope it’s not too far off. And, of course, we want to keep bringing you Kill Your Darlings for many years to come.

But we need your help! We’re putting out a call for additional support. On our homepage, there’s currently a DONATE button where you can nominate an amount of your choice – no sum is too small. Every dollar you give will be going straight into ensuring Kill Your Darlings endures, and with it, the voices of Australian writers.

Thank you for reading. Please don’t hesitate to contact Kill Your Darlings directly if you have further queries about this post and donating on info@killyourdarlingsjournal.com.

Rebecca Starford is the editor of Kill Your Darlings.

By way of disclaimer, as well as my role at Kill Your Darlings, I’m the associate publisher at Affirm Press, a small independent publisher based in Melbourne. I’ve been managing our Long Story Shorts project, a series of six individual collections of short stories by new and emerging writers including Bob Franklin, Emmett Stinson and Gretchen Shirm.

This month, we published Irma Gold’s Two Steps Forward, the final book in the series. Affirm Press is using social media over the coming weeks to start conversations about all-things short fiction, and we’ve also put together a book trailer, thanks to filmmaker Daniel Cahill.

I’ve seen book trailers popping up from time to time. Some are very good; the shorter, the better, is my usual assessment. But there are a few, longer ones – they’re almost short films – that have caught my attention.

The first is the bizarre and hilarious mockumentary trailer for Gary Shteyngart’s latest novel, Super Sad True Love Story. Celebrity cameos abound (Edmund White, James Franco); it generally takes the piss out of the book world. And while it’s very difficult to gauge the effectiveness of print advertising (whether people are looking at the ad, let alone being persuaded to buy the product) or even online, static adverts (despite the click-through statistics), the Super Sad True Love Story book trailer has been viewed nearly 180,000 times.

Similarly, the Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters book trailer has been viewed 315,000 times. The book, which is a parody of the Jane Austen classic, lends itself very well to book-trailer form – it’s downright silly, with opportunities for gags with every turn of the page.

The thing is, traditional advertising is expensive – most print advertising is out of reach for smaller publishers; larger publishers are starting to look elsewhere to promote their books. What I like about book trailers is that they are experiential – you’re taken somewhere, briefly, with the video. Will I buy the book? I don’t know. But I remember it; and as a publisher I know that a book trailer is easier to promote than a traditional advertisement. And for the cost of a full-page advertisement in a trade magazine, you can engage the creative innovation of an emerging filmmaker, editor and script-writer – and, with a strategic promotional drive, most likely reach a far larger audience.

Rebecca Starford is editor of Kill Your Darlings and Associate Publisher at Affirm Press.

When we first dreamed up the concept of Kill Your Darlings, we had a clear vision for the aesthetic – film noir.  Svelte, shadowy, 1940s kitsch and costume, the hint of danger. A story was integral to the covers – the characters tell their own story, and it was a narrative that progressed with the changing seasons.

The first four covers voyeuristically follow a young woman. She’s sensual, sophisticated and – importantly – enthralled by literature. She’s also a lonely character, living somewhat outside of convention, and in this we wished to cultivate her sense of mystery. By Issue 4, we hoped for something of an evolution in her character – she had come out of the dark and into the light. However, when Issue 5 launched in April with the brooding male protagonist (sporting a love-heart tattoo with the name ‘Daisy’), it was clear the girl hadn’t disappeared forever…

I studied film noir at university and acquired an obsession for the genre: I gorged on the films of Orson Welles, Howard Hawkes, Billy Wilder (isn’t Barbara Stanwyck the best femme fatale ever?), and later the sunshine noir of Tarantino, David Lynch and, more recently, Brian De Palma. But during all those screenings, I never thought for a moment that this interest in film would so inform the creative direction of Kill Your Darlings.

In the early discussions with the KYD team, we kicked around many concepts for the debut illustration. We studied all sorts of covers for film noir and detective novels, and looked at old literary journals. There was an early consensus that the first issue must be striking – we wanted people to pick up the cover with eyebrows raised. We wanted people to think: ‘What’s this?’ and be surprised (and pleased) to discover it was a literary journal.

Kill Your Darlings was very lucky to work with Jeremy Ley for the first five issues. An illustrator with a penchant for cartoons, he brought a unique sensibility to the covers, fresh angles, and a real dynamism. The latest issue (on sale this Monday) introduces Melbourne-based illustrator Guy Shield. His artwork is bold, moody and very engaging. The story continues, imbued with Guy’s distinct palette and sharp approach.

It’s always with nerdish excitement that I open an attachment from our cover illustrators, to see what they’ve come up with for the new cover. I can’t wait to get chatting to Guy about the next artwork. Where do you think our brooding dude will be next?

Rebecca Starford is editor of Kill Your Darlings.

Issue Six of Kill Your Darlings is now available to purchase online. To order your copy (with free postage), please click here to subscribe.

A particular personal highlight for 2010 was our events series – particularly the KYD Literary Trivia Nights (in Melbourne and Adelaide), which brought together our readers, writers and fans of Australian writing. I’m really looking forward to broadening the scope of these trivia nights (hoping to make it to Sydney, for starters), and KYD will be returning with the next Literary Trivia Night in April 2011 – with stacks more prizes! It’s been a real pleasure meeting new people, and all at KYD look forward next year to forging new relationships, while consolidating and strengthening our current friendships with contributors, subscribers, booksellers and folks who just love books.

2011 is shaping up to be a cracker – with exciting new works of fiction, commentary and reviews, and an eclectic calendar of events. Keep an eye on the website and blog for all the latest posts, podcasts, review material and news in the coming weeks.

But 2011 also poses a great challenge to the Australian bookselling and publishing community. Where we buy our books is shaping up to be one of the most significant issues. 2010 was a tough financial year for our great indie bookstores (‘the envy of the world’, international industry people were reminding us only a couple of years ago), but unfortunately there are gloomy predictions for 2011. Bookstores have reported sales being down this past financial year (there’s been no Rudd money, of course, and interest rates are on the steady increase). But it’s the larger and more pervasive corporations that threaten our vibrant indie culture, and online, overseas-based retailers, like Amazon and Booktopia, whose slashed-at prices are hard to resist.

So as you shop for books as gifts this Christmas, please ask yourself this one question: where do I want these dollars to go? Increasingly, we demand answers to such questions when it comes to purchasing our food, clothing and footwear. Now it’s time to ask it of our book-buying habits. Because, as conscientious book buyers, we’re all responsible for the changing shape of the book trade – and we have the capacity to make a difference. Our indie stores are, after all, the lifeblood of our literary culture, for decades supporting unknown writers and local publishers.

We’ll be publishing more about this issue next year, both on the website and in the print issue – but it’s this consideration I’d like to leave with you: what kind of bookselling scene do you wish for this country?

Have a safe and merry Christmas holiday. We can’t wait to see you all again in the New Year. Issue 4 is hitting all good bookstores from January 14 – look out for sneak peeks on the website soon.

Rebecca Starford is editor of Kill Your Darlings.

I won’t rehash Gideon’s argument (you can read the article in full here) – but needless to say, it has generated much debate on this site, and others, about the state of critical writing in this country. Many people have objected to Gideon’s ‘bilious attack’; others have asked him to name names. Others have called the Kill Your Darlings team mediocre critics – and I’m happy to entertain these views in the context of the discussion. The main initiative behind Kill Your Darlings is, after all, to publish new writing that provokes thought, challenges readers and generates lively and original debate.

And so I had been looking forward to a nuanced conversation with Peter Craven, Hilary McPhee and Gideon Haigh about the traditional modes of Australian literary criticism, the problems they encounter (shrinking editorial space, dwindling readerships, erosion of critical authorities, among others), how the digital world destabilises/complements this forum, and where Australian literary criticism is – if indeed it is – moving forward.

Unfortunately, I (and I suspect many of the audience) came away from ‘Critical Failure: Books’ frustrated and disappointed (in myself, it must be said). The panel had failed in its intentions: to generate a rigorous, considerate, balanced discussion about Australian book criticism in all its forms and the changing shape of critical thinking.

I think the problem of the panel was its make-up – and perhaps the fact that there were two strands of conversation at work. Peter Craven, a traditionalist and one of the country’s finest and long-standing critics, was reluctant to validate ideas about the changing forums for critical ideas (he joked about not even bothering to read Gideon’s article). But then, why would he? It is in his interest for these traditional forums to be perpetuated, and he is one of the few critics afforded the kind of editorial space for which we were all opining, where he can write, as he boasted, about books as broad-ranging as Hamlet and Harry Potter. Diminishing space may not, therefore, be a problem for him, but for us more humble critics it is – and that is hardly conducive to healthy critical culture.

Hilary McPhee comes from a different background: that of a publisher, McPhee Gribble, which was responsible for introducing us to the works of literary giants Helen Garner and Tim Winton, to name a few. Hilary spoke about her voracious appetite for criticism – but finds inspiration in our pages, in comparison to the likes of the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books, lacking.

Gideon Haigh is a journalist of twenty-six years experience; he has seen the shape of critical writing in the broadsheets change. He is, of his own admission, only a newbie reader of literary blogs, but still felt the debate at the Wheeler Centre should be focused around print reviewing.

And myself? I felt strangely conflicted in my position. On the one hand, I had been invited very much as a ‘new voice’ – and a reactionary one, presumably, due to my role as publisher and editor at Kill Your Darlings. But I also came into the debate as associate publisher at Affirm Press, a Melbourne-based independent publisher whose books – like that of many small independent presses – sometimes struggle to gain the critical attention they deserve in mainstream media outlets.

As rightfully highlighted by an audience member, the question of ‘what makes good criticism good’ wasn’t really properly answered. I am as guilty as the others on this score – apart from Gideon, who went some way to answering the question. But as I alluded in my introduction on Tuesday, the notion of contemporary criticism is problematic, because there is very much a schism between what we are defining as traditional literary criticism – which you see published in places like ALR, ABR, The Monthly and by notable print critics, like James Bradley and Kerryn Goldsworthy, who also operate their own blogs – and the ‘review pages’ in our national broadsheets, where content ranges anywhere from 100 words to 1000 words.

I think we’re all now at the point where we can cease bemoaning this situation – and it seems that there are needless blame games operating in some strands of this argument. The fact is that these pages are under increasing strain for a number of reasons (economic rationing, dwindling readership, publishing and publicity pressures, general changes to the way readers consume newspapers). This is not to say that they are not important, not serving a purpose and promoting new writing – they are. But their influence – in a critical sense – has changed. And the value we attribute to critical writing has changed with it.

And this is the rub. Traditional forms of literary criticism are failing in this country not because critical authority is lacking, but because this critical authority is increasingly high-minded and ostentatious; it is criticism that does not reflect the diversity and richness of our national literature. For this reason, it is failing our writers and readers.

When, for example, do you ever see a lengthy review – steeped in the style and technique of the work, the complexity of its narrative, the socio-historic content – of a first-time, unknown novelist? An emerging poet? When do anthologies (outside the annual ‘Best of…’) receive sustained evaluation? What of genre fiction? Graphic novels? Counter-cultural tracts? Gay and lesbian writing? Literature in translation?

As an associate publisher of a small, independent press, I cannot see the necessity in reading five or so reviews of the latest Peter Carey novel – each written in the same cautious vein, with the same summary of plot, with the same reference to past works, each as fearful as the next lest the reviewer draw notoriety for being ‘that girl’ who ‘trashed’ Peter Carey.

My argument, as I tried to make during the discussion on Tuesday, will always be for diversity on our review pages, for fresh approaches and bold content. It was in fact Gideon who made the point about the value of such criticism for new Australian writers, as it in turn shapes their own process of re-crafting, evaluating their finished work, building their oeuvre and helping them – and of course us – better understand their place and value in our collective literature.

And this is where I see the divide. Many readers are turning from the books pages because they aren’t reading about books they are interested in; they are simply not being engaged by a voice that speaks to them. And increasingly, these same readers are turning to the more interactive, democratic and discursive online realm.

Geordie Williamson’s recent article in the ALR, provocatively entitled ‘Bugger the Bloggers: Old-World Critics Still Count’, was a curious addition to the common misrepresentation of the blogging phenomenon by traditional critics. Williamson, who has written respectfully on the nature of blogging, and acknowledged its importance in literary conversation, had this to say in his article about ‘criticism’ in blog form:

However marvellous it may be, the web is no more than a medium: its content is not more virtuous, intelligent or correct for appearing in a novel space […] Also, in a world characterised by a hyper-abundance of media, where bandwidths are filled with a ceaseless flow of chatter and governments drown real information in large-scale data dumps, it is the sceptical, nimble-minded, old-fashioned literary critic, trained to thresh narrative grain from word chaff, who is best situated to gather something like truth from the digital realm.

It’s this exact type of literary fundamentalism that has engendered this problem in the first place, as if there was a distinct divide between ‘us’ – another species of reader and writer, less discerning and by implication lazier – and ‘them’. And who is this ‘old-fashioned critic’, anyway? Someone who doesn’t use the internet? Someone who doesn’t type his reviews for himself? Someone who deliberately obfuscates every kind of critical discourse?

There is no ‘pack’ mentality to blogging, as so described in Williamson’s article – some of the liveliest and most entertaining dissension is published on literary blogs. And surely he can’t be arguing that print reviewing is free from critical unanimity? Blogging is, by its very nature, a collective, communal space that is devoted to the transmission of ideas. Much of it is not criticism, but it mostly doesn’t suppose itself to be. It is simply an open and democratic forum where diverse people can come together and comment on literature, which is in its own way culture-building. After all, everyday communication – for better or worse – is growing daily online, and such writing is merely an extension of that.

I’m encouraged to see the number of literary blogs popping up. I certainly don’t read all of them – and my own tastes very much lead me to the sites of writers and critics like Mark Mordue, for example. But that is exactly what this debate relates to – taste and values, and how they are changing. Now, we can see the multifariousness of these tastes articulated: some readers look for more generalist conversations on texts; others like to read more critically and analytically about a book.

There are those who view the proliferation of voices on the web as somehow eroding clear and distinct critical authority. I think it’s important here to calibrate your argument. For me, in my capacity as a publisher and editor, and occasional reviewer, I see these changes as not restrictive or problematic, but merely a sign of progress and positive change. The creation of Kill Your Darlings was in response to a desire to see more intelligent and critical responses to all kinds of writing (more of the writing, frankly, that we wanted to read); to provide a platform for new voices that build and enrich our collective culture – many of which, I’m proud to note, have been discovered online. I look forward to continuing that tradition.

It’s been a controlled sort of chaos for the Kill Your Darlings team for the last couple of weeks. Not only have we published and distributed our inaugural issue, but we have launched it in both Adelaide (as part of the Adelaide Writers’ Week program) and in Melbourne.

Riding in on the back of Philip Hoare’s enthralling account of whale-watching and his book, Leviathan, Kill Your Darlings launched Issue One to a packed-out West Tent in Adelaide on Friday 5 March. We’d like to extend a huge thanks to Charlotte Wood, acclaimed author of The Children and recently editor of Brothers and Sisters, who kindly agreed to launch us – and who spoke so eloquently and passionately about her appreciation of the Australian literary journal culture. And thank you, too, to Clementine Ford, who had us all laughing with her reading of ‘Love in a LOL-ed Climate’, which recounts her (disastrous) Internet dating experiences.

Pictured: Charlotte Wood, Deputy Editor Hannah Kent, Associate Editor Jo Case and Editor Rebecca Starford

On Thursday, we were delighted to launch the issue at that Melbourne lit-gig stable, Bella Union Bar, in Trades Hall. Thank you to our contributors Gideon Haigh and Emmett Stinson for reading from their respective pieces. And another huge thank you to Michael Williams, Head of Programming at the Wheeler Centre and general man-about-town, for launching the issue with his famous wit. (It seems unfair, doesn’t it, that the man can write, program incredible literary events and speak entertainingly in public?)

Issue One contributor Gideon Haigh reads at the Melbourne launch.

Most importantly, we’d like to thank everyone who came along to the launches and showed their support. We’d also like to thank everyone who helped in making Kill Your Darlings become a reality. Special thanks to all our families, and to Lorraine Harding, our business manager for the establishment period, who put in so many unpaid hours and contributed hugely to the concept of the journal; Anne-Marie Reeves, our very own designer extraordinaire and consulting editor for issue one; Martin Hughes at Affirm Press, for his continued support, encouragement and enthusiasm for Kill Your Darlings; Flinders University, for all its support; and all our editorial advisors, particularly Martin Shaw, who gave us invaluable commercial advice in starting up, contributes regularly to our blog and has been an excellent all-round KYD cheerleader.

So, stay tuned: the Kill Your Darlings website and blog under the guidance of online editor Estelle Tang will continue to grow – in its content and diversity. We look forward to bringing you Issue Two in July.

There was a fascinating post on Mother Jones website last week about the state of literary magazine culture in the United States. Ted Genoways, editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, wrote on what he views as the demise of the publication – and appreciation – of short fiction in American magazines. The title of this blog comes from a quote from Genoways, whose magazine receives 15,000 submissions of fiction per year. He began his article on Mother Jones aptly, describing (to our amusement) people’s perceptions of his role at the VQR:

It’s inevitable. At a dinner party or on the sidelines of my son’s soccer game, someone well-meaning will ask what I do. ‘I edit the Virginia Quarterly Review, I tell them. ‘It’s the literary magazine at the University of Virginia.’ They nod politely, sometimes with the vaguest hint of recognition. Yes, they remember seeing in the local paper that we’ve won some big awards, right? It’s well respected, isn’t it? But the idea of editing a literary magazine seems, to them, only slightly more utilitarian than making buggy whips or telegraph relays. It’s the sort of arcane craft they assumed was kept alive only by a lost order of nuns in a remote mountain convent or by the Amish in some print shop in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

Sound familiar?

The article is a curious one – but well worth reading. Genoways laments the shrinking of space for short fiction in viable, commercial magazines like Elle, GQ and Seventeen, while taking a pot-shot at the burgeoning enterprise of creative writing schools at universities. Genoways, it seems, want a piece each way.

One would think that the rapid eviction of literature from the pages of commercial magazines would have come as a tremendous boon to lit mags, especially at the schools that have become safe harbors for (and de facto patrons of) writers whose works don’t sell enough to generate an income. You would expect that the loyal readers of established writers would have provided a boost in circulation to these little magazines and that universities would have seen themselves in a new light—not just promoting the enjoyment of literature but promulgating a new era of socially conscious writing in the postcommercial age. But the less commercially viable fiction became, the less it seemed to concern itself with its audience, which in turn made it less commercial, until, like a dying star, it seems on the verge of implosion. Indeed, most American writers seem to have forgotten how to write about big issues—as if giving two shits about the world has gotten crushed under the boot sole of postmodernism.

Genoways does make one point that resonated particularly with me. It is a call to arms, in a sense – a demand that writers put themselves and their work on the line. ‘Stop being so damned dainty and polite,’ he insists. ‘Treat writing like your lifeblood instead of your livelihood.  And for Christ’s sake, write something we might want to read.’

You can’t really argue with that.

Presented by the Midsumma Visual Arts Program, ‘Finding Space’ showcases fourteen artists’ work in photography, video and installation, exploring a symbiotic dialogue between their identity, their art and the constructed world in which they reside. ‘Finding Space’ touches on the precarious intimacy between imagination and physical space. Kill Your Darlings Editor Rebecca Starford attended the opening on Tuesday 19 January at The Carlton Hotel Studios, in Melbourne. She chatted with Marc Trabsky , whose installation Dianus, co-created with Maya Gnyp, is displayed at the exhibition.

Dianus, created by Marc Trabsky and Maya Gnyp, is a confronting and cerebral piece of installation art, combining film (Deux homes nus se roulant par terre), mise en scène and music. It re-imagines queer erotica, juxtaposing the often prosaic representations of pornography. ‘We were interested in shooting films that played around with the limits of art and pornography,’ Trabsky explains. ‘We wanted, basically, to make a film that was an imitation of vintage erotica from the 1940s. And the idea is a simple one: in black and white, two guys rolling around naked.’

In Dianus, we enter a dark, dilapidated room, decorated with the furniture of a bygone era. There is an antique cupboard, a sideboard with stained wine glasses and plastic roses in a vase. There is a couch in one corner, with an old sink nearby. A black-and-white film is projected against one blank wall. On a loop, it depicts two young men, naked. They kiss and engage in intimate foreplay. Across from the couch is a television, which plays another black-and-white film. This film has the same actors in a different narrative; more playful – with conversation and smoking – it again depicts nudity and sex.

Two songs accompany the installation: Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ and The Carpenters’ ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’. Like the films, the songs are on a loop – and they lend a great sense of nostalgia and parody to the installation, and also heighten the feeling of claustrophobia. ‘We did want to create a particular aesthetic,’ Trabsky says. ‘We’re very much interested in the mise en scène in this installation. We wanted to pay a certain homage to the queer cinema of that era, and to create a theatrical scene, of sorts. We’ve used the idea of “a lost room” to influence the design. Using inanimate objects – a matchbox, a plastic flower in a vase, an ash tray – hopefully creates a kind of ambiguity between artifice and reality or authenticity. At the same time, the theme of a space that is seemingly out of time, outside of our reality, is what we’re playing with.’ 

Ultimately, Dianus is about liminal spaces – that space, particularly, between reality and virtuality. Trabsky and Gnyp were influenced by a George Bataille short story, in The Impossible, which dramatises the Dianus myth. Taking the Janus/Dianus figure – the god of beginning and endings – the installation is a reflection on how, by focusing on both the past and future, the present is ultimately obscured. And the repetition in the installation acts as a constant reminder of the failure to represent. ‘We’re not attempting to authenticate vintage erotic,’ Trabsky explains. ‘What we’re trying to represent is the absence of innate male beauty – and the failure to authenticate these experiences.’

What is striking in the interactions between the actors in the film, Deux homes nus se roulant par terre, is the way that it depicts presence and absence. They withhold and retract; there is aggression, frustration and disconnectedness in their performances. ‘This is what is essential to the performance,’ says Trabsky. ‘That movement between presence and absence. Cinema is the perfect medium for this representation, because it lies between these two domains in time and space.’

And what do Trabsky and Gnyp hope audiences will take away from the experience of the installation?

‘We’d like people to question their expectations of art and pornography,’ Trabsky says. ‘We’re also trying to revive a kind of practice of filming that seems to be present in filmmakers who made erotica at the beginning of the twentieth century – and their greater sense of experimentation. Today, there is less experimentation – artistically and aesthetically – in pornography. Likewise, in the contemporary Melbourne art scene, many works are largely devoid of sexuality. I guess we’re trying to queer that art scene.’

Trabsky and Gnyp have plans to expand their works in 2010. ‘There’s a whole range of projects in the erotica series, involving all sorts of people,’ Trabsky says. ‘We hope to showcase more films later in the year. And there are always more scenes to construct, countless lost rooms to create.’

Marc Trabsky and Maya Gnyp are part of the MarthaArthur collective. ‘Finding Space’ will be open until 6 February. Visit http://www.midsumma.org.au for more details.

It was slow getting away in the morning, with a few dawdling over breakfast. I got very frustrated, probably more than I should, but I hated wasting daylight hours when we faced uncertain conditions. It was the coldest morning of the trip: –26°C at 0715 with winds at 20–30 knots.

We were away with high confidence at 0940, but bogged by 0950! By then we were the extraction A team, and so thirty minutes later we moving again. We had only two other boggings that day, and both times the Haggs were able to self extract. We’ve all got much better at this.

Our lunch stop was at Tilley Nunatak; it had only taken three hours to arrive in comparison to the eleven hours, in the reverse direction, on Monday. We arrived Colbeck at 1630 and immediately started digging out the fuel cache and moving it to rocks higher and further west. Some older drums were found under two metres of snow, making them virtually inaccessible and a leak risk. There were a number in poor condition, so we decanted those into better drums, planning to return the dodgy ones to Mawson.

Day Twelve: Friday 25 September

I ordered a compulsory sleep in until 0800 – no protests to that! Brilliant sun all day and no wind. We had a great climb up good scree and snow to the top of Chapman’s Ridge. The view was one of the best I’ve seen, anywhere. Mt Henderson was one hundred kilometres to the east. I spied a frozen lake from the top of the ridge, and scrambled down to explore – spending two hours walking over its enormous surface, mesmerised by the patterns created by air bubbles trapped when it snap froze. I also found an old whale bone trapped in the ice. When I returned to the hut, I finished transferring the fuel cache. We celebrated our last night with a bottle of half frozen port.

Day Thirteen: Saturday 26 September

It was an easy trip back to Mawson on generally clean ice. One major tide crack was the only difficulty; it took an hour to find a safe crossing. A Weddle pup was seen at the southern end of the tide crack, afterbirth bright red on the snow – so it perhaps only a few hours old. It was our first pup for the season.

We returned to Mawson at 1630 for a quick unpack, a long shower and even longer debrief at the newly renovated bar. It was nice to be ‘home’. A shower and my first real soap in two weeks (we use alcohol scrub in the field). I weighed myself – and found I lost two and a half kilograms. I better go again!

This trip was one of the highlights of my year. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to Kloa, but happy with what we did achieve. I was also able to give news of a possible Adélie penguin colony, first found in 1954 and since forgotten. If confirmed, it will be the most western colony in Antarctica. We were visiting our nearby Adélie colonies every day; none seen yet but their return was imminent. Our replacements are now half-way through their training in Tassie and in about five to six weeks, we would be watching for the light planes on the sea ice in front of Mawson. For me, it would be the first of the four flights that I needed to catch to reach home, hopefully in early December. Time to start working on my final reports, performance reviews and finish off the stocktakes – and get out to Auster one more time. And it would also be time to dust off the CV and see what jobs are out there for chubby fifty-two year olds with frostbite and a nasty habit of wearing thermals for five days straight.

I slept badly, my mind racing with all that happened. The wind didn’t help, tents flapping madly but very secure. By mid-morning the blizz was right on us with winds gusting to more than 100kph. Advised at 0900 sked that forecast was for strong winds until Sunday, so we would be there for at least the next two nights. Everyone spent a reasonably comfortable day in their tents, with periodic skeds using the hand-held VHS to swap recipes for ration packs and suggestions on how to pee without going outside and without your tent partner knowing!

It was the first time I’d really camped in Antarctica. It’s very cramped in the tent and any movement has to be signalled and carefully executed to prevent knocking over the stove, which is in constant use melting snow for water. Bucky set up a camp crapper in the back of one of the Haggs – a wooden toilet seat on a bucket with talcum powder sprinkled after to kill odours. He even provided a year old copy of The Daily Telegraph! Lee and I spent the day reading old logs of previous trips to this region. Forecast at the 1800 sked was for the weather to ease on Sunday.

Day Six: Saturday 19 September

Weather at 0900: ‐8°C, 980Mb, 70–80kph and less than 50-metre visibility. Barometer unchanged. There is no correlation between air pressure and the weather; it had been the same in sunshine and blizzard!

Muesli with dehydrated apple mash for breakfast – a great recipe from Tom. Everyone slept well. Lee and I both managed to go eighteen hours without a pee, which we think is an Antarctic record. Not a lot of incentive to go outside to empty the pee bottle – you had to slide out on your belly into the blizz and then dive back inside, and back into the sleeping bag to get warm again. In the meantime, a mountain of snow had come in with you.

We had a lunch meeting in the back of the yellow Hagglunds, where we compared tent layouts and recipes for dehydrated dinners. We agreed not to break camp until we had retrieved the fuel sled. Aaron advised that we are down to nine winching anchors, three bent already.

Two types of pasta dish for dinner; the 1998 expiry-date version superior to the 2001. 1998 also a great year for wine. A coincidence? 1800 sked: no change to weather forecast. Met again after dinner for cards; the diesel heater in the rear cabs worked pretty well.

Day Seven: Sunday 20 September

By 0700, the wind had gone completely. The barometer, however, was only up slightly to 988Mb – even Bucky, as our Met rep, was totally confused. Temperature was a balmy: –7.5C; we hadn’t seen weather like that since early March.

It took several hours to reorganise the Haggs and campsite. We didn’t get to the sled until 1315. The recovery was hampered by having to secure ice for the Haggs; both electric winches could be used. Recovery was achieved without incident, and we returned to camp. Aaron replaced alternator on the green Hagg (dodgy bearings) while Seuss, Bucky, Tom and I climbed Tilley Nunatak. It was so nice to have calm weather again.

From that high up, it seemed our best ice lay close to the coast. Lee did the sked with Tubby and helped Aaron. Weather forecast was for low winds for the next two days. We planned to get away early and try to get to Ledingham’s Depot the next morning.

Day Eight: Monday 21 September

0900 sked and weather forecast was good (conditions would gradually improve over the next days). It was overcast on departure at 0930. Green Hagg was caught up on steep blue ice leaving Tilley but soon sorted it.

It was another hard day for the group with three more boggings, the last of which occurred one and a half kilometres from – and within sight of – Ledingham’s Depot. The typical profile of the ice present was twenty to fifty centimetres of snow on top of twenty to thirty centimetres of slush, with good ice below. Surface gave no indication of what was underneath, and grey unbroken clouds meant your nose was constantly at the windscreen, peering for a route. By the end of the day we were counting down the kilometres, wondering when we’d next break through.

Just as our confidence was growing the yellow Hagg bogged two and a half kilometres from Ledingham’s Depot, and again one kilometre further on! The island was only 200 metres away, so I decided, once we had both vehicles free, to camp there. We left the sled on the sea ice.

Brilliant campsite in the saddle of a low island, from where we could actually see the hut at Ledingham’s Depot . It was much easier pitching tents with no wind. We planned to walk to Ledingham’s in the morning and tried to find a suitable route for the Haggs. We were now six days behind schedule, and only half way. I was less confident about getting to Kloa.

Day Nine: Tuesday 22 September

It was a beautiful day for the spring equinox (–22°C start kept us on our toes though). Easy forty-five minute walk to Ledingham’s Depot. The track along a blizz tail running straight off the island looks our best opportunity for taking the Haggs over. The last group had left the shovel across the hut door – a nice gesture except that the blade was iced in and it took forty-five minutes of smashing with ice axes to free it and get inside!

We walked back to camp and used the remaining sunlight to service choofers, air sleeping bags and the melt snow for drinking water. Cards was attempted outside around sunset, but we abandoned it as the temperature fell to –20°C and the wind rose.

I canvassed everyone’s thoughts on our options, and at the 1800 sked I asked Tubby if there would be any implications back at the station if we continued to Kloa. It was great to have the full support of everyone back at the station, who couldn’t leave in our absence.

Day Ten: Wednesday 23 September

We brought the Haggs safely over from the campsite in the morning and immediately offloaded excess weight and went searching for the Fold Island Emperor penguin rookery. There was a very heavy track. Glenn and I walked one section between two islands and found some very boggy slush, so were glad we’d checked before attempting to drive it.

Grey skies again reduced track definition. We parked on a small island adjoining the northern side of Transverse Island, climbed the rise and found the penguin colony 500 metres to the west on the sea ice. Lee and I walked within one hundred of the colony, while the others climbed Transverse Island which, at about 120 metres, provided a better site for taking photos and the undertaking of a census.

There are only about 450 birds in this colony, compared to 5000 at Auster. There were a few dead chicks; we had a permit to collect thirty but we didn’t want to risk taking them; I was worried we might disturb the colony.

We returned along the same route to the hut, retrieving the sled from the sea ice. We were able to depot 1200 litres of fuel for helicopter operations in the next few years.

At dinner, I advised that we would turn back to Mawson tomorrow because the track conditions didn’t appear to be improving; every additional bogging west could mean a bogging going home, increasing fatigue and risk. If we continued west, we could be away for another fortnight, which would be a bit rough on those back at the station, particularly at that time of year.

Another change of thermals and socks for me – the treats just keep on coming!

To be continued…