Undercover: the tiny press that impressed PM's judges

Two of the five books shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for poetry are published by a small newcomer. Pitt Street Poetry was started in 2012 by Sydney couple Linsay and John Knight - she a former children's publisher, he a children's kidney specialist with an MA in literature, now professorial fellow with a health institute. Both poetry lovers, they republished their friend John Foulcher's acclaimed first book, Light Pressure (out of print for 30 years), and then to good reviews The Sunset Assumption, a collection he wrote on a Paris residency. Another 16 white-covered volumes have followed, including those chosen by the PM's judges (Louise Adler, Jamie Grant, Margie Bryant, Les Murray, Robert Gray): Drag Down to Unlock or Place an Emergency Call by Melinda Smith (pictured) and Chains of Snow by Jakob Ziguras. Smith is a Canberra poet often published by Murray in Quadrant, and uses traditional forms, wordplay, tweet poems of 140 characters and "a huge amount of humour", says John Knight, who was "sold" on her poem on motherhood, A Woman at 40 Weeks' Gestation Contemplates Her Undergarments. Ziguras' was "the first unsolicited manuscript we said we must publish"; the son of Greek and Polish parents, he has a PhD in philosophy and his widely published poems "have a Sydney sensibility with a global outlook". The Knights "donate" their time and say poetry would not exist without the Australia Council; but they hope the press will be self-sustaining, with each book returning its costs. As large publishers abandon poetry, they say there is "room for small presses with great poets who want holistic publishing".

DAVID FOSTER (WALLACE)

Google David Foster and you find a Canadian musician, a Tasmanian woodchopper and, overwhelmingly, the late American writer David Foster Wallace. You have to dig further to find Australia's David Foster, author of 20 books of original and often challenging fiction, essays and poetry. A meandering essay in his new book, The Niqab and the Mumkin (Puncher & Wattmann), notes this in his droll, defeatist style, blaming Wallace's success for his own decline. When Wallace's Infinite Jest appeared in 1996, the same year as Foster's Miles Franklin-winning The Glade Within the Grove, Foster knew he was "deader than a plate of Irish cabbage". After Wallace's suicide in 2008 it was Foster who vanished in the rush of posthumous praise. "There could be no room at the top for both David Foster and David Foster Wallace. Advantage USA."

MEETING OF MINDS

Twelve indigenous writers are travelling to India as part of the new Literary Commons program run by the University of Western Sydney's Writing and Society Research Centre. It's an interesting exchange between "two of the oldest human civilisations, two contemporary societies, two vibrant democracies, two modern nation-states that also boast two of the earliest story-telling traditions of the world: the First Nations/Indigenous and the Dalit/tribals", who were known as the Untouchables and have had a recent literary flowering. Cathy Craigie, Anita Heiss, Jared Thomas, Ellen Van Neerven and Nicole Watson will attend the Goa Arts and Writers Festival and the Madras University Indigenous Conference in December. Alexis Wright, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Lionel Fogarty are among groups visiting other Indian events. Heiss, a tireless advocate for indigenous writing, says the trip is "the platform for those participating to not only grow our readership internationally in one of the world's largest markets, but it's also an opportunity to learn from writers in India in terms of their own process of researching and writing".