Steven Schwartz, the former vice chancellor of Macquarie University and executive director of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, suggests Australia needs an unpaid poet laureate. Perhaps he is trying to draw attention to the appearance of Les Murray and David Malouf at the CHASS National Forum, in Melbourne on October 8-9. Or he might truly see the value of the institution embraced by many countries including his native US, which has state, city and county poets as well as a national poet laureate. Schwartz points out Australia had only one poet laureate, Michael Massey Robinson, an Oxford-educated "cad and bounder" appointed by Governor Macquarie, who paid him two cows, and then sacked by Governor Brisbane. "Murray is widely loved, but an official laureate can do much more than an unofficial one," Schwartz says, arguing for poetry in public life. "It might not help them get elected, but it certainly would not hurt Australian politicians to read Shelley's Ozymandias; they may gain a little humility." The winner of the CHASS Book Prize will be named at the forum dinner, chosen from the shortlisted Joan Beaumont for The Broken Nation, Iain McCalman for The Reef, and Mike Smith for The Archaeology of Australia's Deserts. 

VICTORIAN LIVES

Prolific British author A.N. Wilson has published Victoria: A Life, a 600-page biography of the queen who has been the subject of dozens since Lytton Strachey's admired 1921 work. British reviewers have praised Wilson's insights into Victoria's complex inner life (The Guardian), but say his research unearthed little that changes the familiar picture of "the emotional girl, the passionate wife, the scolding mother, the hysterical widow, the imperious sovereign, the antique icon" (The Independent). That leaves room for Australian journalist and author Julia Baird to bring a fresh, feminist, non-British perspective to the "stroppy" working single mother of nine in the biography she has been researching for five years, which will be published next September by HarperCollins Australia.

CHAIRS FILLED AT HACHETTE 

Matt Richell's death in a surfing accident in July, five months after becoming chief executive of Hachette Australia, has led to a reshuffle and several promotions. Under Richard Kitson, the new chairman for Australia and New Zealand, Louise Sherwin-Stark is elevated to managing director for sales and product and Justin Ractliffe becomes managing director for marketing and publicity, with added responsibility for Australian publishing. David Cocking is the new chief operating officer. Another staff member, publisher Bernadette Foley, is leaving the company after 10 years to take a break from publishing. The moves appear to strengthen Australia-New Zealand ties, and the influence of marketing in decision-making, as corporations such as Penguin Random House grower bigger and more competitive.

AS I WAS SAYING

In last week's Undercover I wrote about Peter Carey's novel Amnesia, coming out on October 14. The Sydney Writers' Festival has since announced Carey will be in conversation with Jennifer Byrne at the Sydney Opera House Studio on October 20. A week earlier I mentioned the Olga Masters Festival, to be held on the South Coast on October 10-12. University of Queensland Press this week reissued her first novel Loving Daughters in a new series of UQP Modern Classics, with Gillian Mears' story collection Fineflour and, in November, Kate Grenville's debut novel Joan Makes History. Coming next year from the UQP backlist are Miss Peabody's Inheritance by Elizabeth Jolley and Descant for Gossips by Thea Astley, continuing the celebration of Astley's work a decade after her death.