Most
dedicated partygoer award of the Sydney Writers’ Festival so far goes
to dashing rugger bugger turned writer Peter FitzSimons, who dragged
his publisher Matthew Kelly of Hodder Headline and ABC Books publisher
Stewart Neal into the dark recesses of Kings Cross for post-awards
beverages.

The Cross has gone upmarket; the crooks and hookers
seemed to be home writing their state-funded street fiction novellas.
“Midnight, and we haven’t yet been propositioned by a lady of the night
or attacked by a speed-fuelled mob of thugs,” mused FitzSimons. “What a
disgrace. I will be writing to the Premier about this.”

FitzSimons
was buying drinks in the vain hope of some action: “I want to see some
gonzo journalism, at least.” FitzSimons is hoping Kim Beazley can
finally go all the way. His biog of the resuscitated Labor leader
(36,000 copies) will be back on the shelves if the Bomber can pull off
a win in 2007. Sadly, there will be no comeback for the dearly departed
Nancy Wake (175,000 copies), while Kokoda (97,250 copies) is still steaming along nicely.

Neal
told us that Chris Masters’ much-anticipated Alan Jones biography was
still in the works. Seems the delay is not so much the legals as the
editing: cutting Masters’ taut 220,000-word manuscript down is proving
difficult, even for the hardened hacks at ABC Books.