Editors no laughing matter for authors

MOST writers like to be anthologised, especially in a title that includes the words "best of". But the smiles on the faces of some of the writers included in Melbourne University Publishing's Best Australian Humorous Writing have disappeared after they belatedly learnt the identity of their editors, Andrew O'Keefe and Steve Vizard.

By InvestSMART · 18 Oct 2008

By InvestSMART ·
18 Oct 2008

O'Keefe is best-known as the host of TV game show Deal or No Deal. Vizard, the creator of popular TV shows including Full Frontal and Tonight Live, was fined $390,000 in 2005 for breaching his duty as a Telstra director and barred from corporate life until 2015.

The collection includes writers such as Roy Slavin, Germaine Greer, former foreign minister Alexander Downer, Guy Rundle, Graeme Blundell, the Chasers, and Dame Edna Everage.

According to several contributors to the collection, to be published in December, they were not told who the editors were.

Had they known, some said, they might not have given permission for their material to be used.

Kaz Cooke, best-selling author of Girls Stuff, said she was contacted by MUP about two pieces. She discovered the identity of the editors when she received her two free copies of the book on Thursday.

"I thought it was a joke cover. Then I realised it wasn't. I haven't been so astounded by a cover since I read the words 'by Paris Hilton'."

Cooke said she had no contact with Vizard or O'Keefe. "I object to the fact that I believe the identities of these editors were deliberately withheld from people because a lot of contributors would not have agreed to be in this book had they known. Had I known . I would not have agreed to be involved."

Comedian Rod Quantock said there was no mention of the editors in his correspondence with MUP. "I have had a very long aversion to one of those gentlemen. If this name had been on (the email), I would not have been part of it."

MUP executive publisher Foong Ling Kong, who commissioned the collection, said Vizard made the initial longlist of contributors. There had been no attempt to cover up his involvement, but O'Keefe would be doing the publicity for the book.

And MUP chief executive Louise Adler described Vizard as one of the most significant figures in Australia in the past two decades. "Why would we disguise the fact that he's the editor?"

Shane Maloney, author of the Murray Whelan crime novels, said had he known of Vizard's involvement it would have made no difference. "The last I heard of him, I thought he still had leprosy. I'm glad he's up and about and if he gets a laugh out of anything I have written, so much the better."