Melbourne-based writer and publisher Miriam Zolin will launch her new jazz-inspired literary journal extempore at this year’s Wangaratta Festival of Jazz. She spoke to Jazz Australia before the event.
Jazz Australia: The obvious thing to ask is first is why? What makes a sane person want to sink their own money into a project that melds jazz with specialist publishing?
Miriam Zolin: The idea of extempore was born out of an absence. I enjoy the music I hear; I buy recordings and go to gigs. But where are the stories? They can be hard to find. Without wanting to get all philosophical about it all, life’s full of choices. I knew that extempore would be a financial risk, but I don’t want to live in a world where commercial imperatives are the only criteria for decision-making.
I suppose that my involvement with the Jazz Australia website has actually played a part in getting the project started. I love writing for the site, because I know my work is being read. I even get the occasional ‘love your work’ email from readers, which is a thrill. Writing for the site has given me confidence – it has made me realise that others are hungry for writing that is inspired by the music, or is about the music (two different things)… I decided to act on that!
I’ve come to accept, also, that my own and others’ reading preferences are still strongly biased towards print. It’s hard to carry a website in your handbag on a tram, for reading on the way to work!
And actually, it’s not such a bad time for small publishing. extempore is a member of a little organisation called SPUNC (Small Press Underground Networking Community) which acts as a type of collective, providing support and facilitating useful networks. There’s actually a really good vibe going on around small press publishing at the moment.
Do you think people who like to listen to jazz also want to read about the music and its associated culture?
MZ: I think a large number of people who enjoy jazz and improvised music in Australia also read about the music and the people who make it… when they can, and if the writing is interesting and of a good quality.
That’s the key. People will always read good, interesting writing. The idea behind this journal is that it’s an arts and writing journal first and secondly that it features themed content ‘about, inspired by and responding to jazz and improvised music’.
I think that this approach will keep the journal interesting to jazz enthusiasts but also to a wider arts-loving readership.
And to reiterate what I said earlier, I would have to say that since first becoming aware of and involved in the scene in Australia, I have been hungry for more writing about and around the music and the musicians. I’m not alone… many feel the same. Hopefully extempore will go some way towards redressing that absence.
JA: Australia has a proud tradition of producing literary journals – Meanjin, Overland, Southerly and, more recently, Heat spring to mind. Do you see extempore as part of this tradition or do you see it as something else?
MZ: I hope extempore becomes part of that tradition – it’s one I think we should be proud of. I’m discovering that literary journals – like the literary scene as a whole or for that matter the jazz scene – are actually run by a network of people who are often connected through having worked or studied together. They all know each other somehow. I’m the new kid on the block and nobody’s heard of me. I don’t have any of those links. I haven’t done, for example, an apprenticeship-style stint at a literary journal, nor do I have an editing background. As managing editor I’m an overseer and decision maker, but rely heavily on the expertise of others.
I’m determined to keep the quality of extempore high – not only in terms of design and production but content, too. That may be enough to give us membership of the tradition, and maybe the links and networks will follow.
JA: You feature an interesting mix of content types – transcript interviews, essays, memoir, fiction and poetry. This seems to be a real strength. Are you happy with the first edition?
MZ: I’m glad you see it as a strength – it was done on purpose and yes I’m very happy at the way it’s turned out. Given that the journal is themed around jazz and improvised music, I wanted to make sure that we explored a wide range of ways of talking about the music and the musicians.
The Paris Review is openly acknowledged in my Editor’s Note in the first issue as a major influence. I’ve even sent a copy to Philip Gourevitch, the journal’s editor in New York. The Paris Review remains interesting and vibrant, decades after it first began, and that is partly because of the wide range of content types it features. In a way it’s a tacit acknowledgement that all these artistic endeavours—these attempts to make sense of the world and our place in it—are connected. All I’ve done is add music into the mix.
JA: There is also a strong visual element – photos, woodblock prints and cartoons (by Bruce Petty) – and these are all rendered attractively; the production values are very high and the volume is a joy to pick up, flick through and read. Clearly, the concentration on this aspect was a conscious decision. Why did you put so much emphasis on the aesthetics of the object itself?
MZ: I knew I was going to invest time, money and effort into this project and I also knew I had access to finite resources of each. It would have been a waste, if I hadn’t done the best I possibly could with what I had.
Some of the biggest lessons I have learned in the last few years, have been about my own strengths and failings. I’m not really good at detail unless forced, and I couldn’t design my way out of a wet paper bag, so I knew those two elements needed to be handed over to experts. Ian Robertson, the designer I’m working with is well known for his typography and has also designed many beautiful art books and catalogues. As soon as we started working together, he was very clear about what needed to happen with the graphics and layout. I stepped back and let him be the expert. We made a decision together about a typeface and then he set up styles for content in line with my brief. I love the result! The photographers Mark Peterson, Natasha Blankfield and Jo Blair along with John Ryrie, whose prints appear in the journal and on the front cover, are also delighted with how it’s turned out.
The beauty of the journal is down to Ian. I stood back and watched in admiration as he made it happen.
I wanted extempore to be something I would enjoy holding and reading. I think we’ve achieved that and hopefully everybody who sees it wants to have one of their very own!
JA: One of the contributions – Sascha Feinstein’s essay on the jazz writing of Kenneth Rexroth – you sourced from the US. Do you have an international focus and could you see extempore finding an overseas readership?
MZ: I’m committed to a minimum 85% Australian content, but just as I want to acknowledge history by including reprints, I also want to acknowledge that the improvised music scene in Australia exists in a wider geographical context. I hope to include writing that relates Europe, Scandinavia and Asia in future editions too. It might be an Australian writer doing something on a visiting musician, or a writer from somewhere else doing something on jazz or improvised music from here or anywhere. I think it’s important to avoid being parochial, while at the same time providing some insights into our own music, musicians and scene.
I also think there’s a real potential readership overseas. Something Paul Grabowsky said in a recent feature in The Australian really rang true for me. “Australia is really only ever going to break through on its otherness, because they (overseas audiences) don’t want to hear something that sounds like even a good copy of an American or European model.”
I know that’s true for fiction. It makes sense that it’s true for music as well. And with extempore, we have an opportunity for our uniqueness to shine through in the writing itself as well as in the subject matter. For example the fiction in the first issue of extempore is written in three very distinctive but undeniably Australian voices.
JA: What do you see as the key challenges as you prepare for the second edition?
MZ: I suppose, having put so much effort in to getting the first one out, and to the standard I had envisioned, the next challenge is to find the energy to keep that vision going. The first issue was the hard because it’s where you set up design, editorial guidelines, style sheets etc. I worked very closely with the designer and with Vyvyan Mishra who edited the journal. Our challenge was to make a splash and I think we’ve done that.
To extend the metaphor, the challenge for issue two and beyond is to keep swimming steadily, improving our stroke as we go. I have content and ideas for content coming to me from all sorts of places and I have to make sure that each issue holds together in some sense, and remains interesting, vibrant and beautiful.
A key challenge will always be to encourage people to purchase, of course! I don’t know how we’ll go with funding and I’m not sure I want to rely on funding for more than a portion of the journal’s income. I think if something’s done well enough it should be able to go some way to supporting itself, eventually.
JA: Lastly, and importantly, where can people buy extempore?
We’re selling extempore in the merchandising tent at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and for those not attending the festival, extempore is always available from the website, as single issues or subscriptions: www.extempore.com.au I have a preference for purchasing in bookshops, so I’ve made sure it’s in shops around the place as well. A list of bookshops stocking the journal is also available on the website.
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Find out more
Read an article on extempore published in The Age
Go the the extempore website
