Literature Events in December

November rolled through our humble little town like an outlaw gun-slinger on a midnight train. Full of booze, bravado and fixing for a brawl, for a short but sweet time it filled our idle lives with excitement.

Then came December, the annoyingly decent, do-gooder sheriff quick on the draw, whose run our lit events out of town like a rabid dog.  Now the sun has set, the streets are empty and the town’s folk are watching the road for the next soul-satisfying calamity.

Just like everyone else, I suppose that publishers start running out of steam towards Christmas time. Despite the huge amount of sales they probably make selling rebranded box sets of Twilight and Lauren Conrad’s new ‘novel’, they’re grinching it up with the events. Even the Wheeler Centre staff must be stuffing stockings, because no one is working in December.

That being said, there are still a few functions to tide you over until the New Year. For those of you bitter about not being selected for the style pages in MX you better sashay down to the St. Kilda Readings on December 2. At 6.30pm, Yvan Rodic, the Face Hunter (not a serial killer from a Thomas Harris novel), will be hanging out and looking for the next specialist in savoir-faire. Roll up your sleeves – to show your sleeves – shave the hair at your temple and quiff the front, because everyone knows landing on this dude’s blog will totes give you hipster cred. If he snaps your mug, you could use it as your profile pic, now that’s something you can’t get from many lit events.

On December 10, across town at the Carlton Readings, adored children’s author and illustrator, Shaun Tan will be spruiking his new DVD and signing books at 12.30pm. Out the front apparently, not actually inside, which is probably going to piss off a lot of Big Issue vendors.

The next day (Saturday the 11th) the boys from The Chaser will be doing the same thing. And if you aren’t satisfied by his smugness on Your Gen and need a little more, Shaun Micallef will take to the sidewalk on the 13th at 6.00pm. Apparently he’s written a novel. Hopefully it’s better than Newstopia.

Rounding up December is the 2010 Express Media Awards Extravaganza on Friday December 17th at 6.30pm. Join Emilie Zoe Baker and John Marsden at the Wheeler Centre as they dish out the kudos to the best young writers from across Australia.

Not the most bustling month, but don’t worry, there’s plenty more midnight trains arriving in January.