About Me

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Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019) and AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021).

Friday, December 26, 2008

It seems like I'm writing a book

Okay, this wasn't intentional.

I said a few posts back that I'd write some sort of submission to the human rights consultation headed up by Frank Brennan. Well, here I am; I've written 27,000 words already, with no end in sight for the reading and writing that I feel I need to do. I'm going to have to stop at some point and wrestle it into some kind of workable structure, etc., to send off to Brennan and his team, but even when I do I'm sure there'll still be much that needs to be said.

This suggests that the submission is actually going to be the core of a new book. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea who is likely to publish such a book - it will have to be an Australian publisher unless I find a way to make the topic much more general (hence losing a lot of good material) because it's very much about how Australia should protect individual rights and freedoms. However, I really don't know whether any Australian publisher might be interested in such a project from me: I don't have an "in" with any publisher that would actually be right for it. It's going to be a matter of "write now, try to work out how to get it published later even if it has to be chopped up into articles" ... which is not the way I like to work. I'm more a "get a contract signed first" kind of guy, though of course I'm now also looking for a publisher (in this case an international one) for my PhD thesis.

If anyone can help me, I'm happy to buy you the ice cream, winsome flute girl, fancy pair of shoes, or other small reward of your choice.

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