The first e-publication of The Royalties, a collective of Australian writers who have come together to create new models of publishing for writers worldwide.The Royalties is a writers' collective founded by Sue Woolfe, Bem Le Hunte, Libby Hathorn and Louise Katz, a group of much-published Australian women novelists who decided to come together to create precedent for innovative new publishing models that will benefit all Australian writers in an international marketplace.We are not particularly tech-savvy, but we all feel the urgency to participate in rapidly changing publishing structures. With current technology there is a real opportunity for writer-centric models to replace traditional legacy publishing models and promote a true renaissance in literature.With publishers nervous and bookstores closing, it's become clear to all of us that this is the time for writers to ride the times, take the risk and claim greater rights to their words. And who, we ask, would take control in these formative moments of opportunity, if not the writers themselves?We are all actively involved in experimenting with our literary work and the way that it is produced, distributed and marketed, and we'd like to share this experiment with other writers. If you're a writer you can join us in this experiment, share in our experience and reach out to a wider community of national and international readers.

A short story that goes with Bem Le Hunte's bestselling novel, 'The Seduction of Silence.'The Final Christmas, by Bem Le HunteI wrote The Final Christmas as a literary accompaniment to a novel I published in 2000, The Seduction of Silence, a story of five generations of an Indian family. A spiritual and emotional journey that traversed 100 years, three continents, this life and the next, The Seduction of Silence flourished with untold stories that couldn’t fit between the jacket sleeves produced by HarperCollins and Penguin, my publishers. The abundance of excess narrative somehow demanded recording. The Final Christmas is just one of the stories that evolved out of my novel: it tells of how the British finally left India, having stayed as uninvited guests for over 200 years. In The Seduction of Silence every character had a complex relationship with the British, and so in The Final Christmas, each of them translates Nehru’s triumphant ‘Freedom at Midnight’ speech to fit their individual ideologies. I hope you enjoy this short story, and if you do, I’d love to hear what you think of this and The Seduction of Silence, should you be willing to share your response at www.bemlehunte.com. Happy reading and thank you so much for sharing these stories with me!Praise for The Seduction of Silence“The Seduction of Silence is a work of persuasive imagination, of such scope, power and narrative charm that it does make you wonder, as with Salman Rushdie and Rohinton Mistry and others, whether all good modern writing has an essential connection with the Indian sub-continent.”Thomas Keneally, Booker Prize winning author of Schindler’s List“A splendidly conceived saga weaving the history of an entire culture into the portrait of one family: vivid, compelling, utterly fascinating.” Kirkus Review, US.“Passion, grief and glory infuse this novel, which is at once wholly original and yet squarely in the tradition of the great family sagas. In prose as vivid and arresting as a marigold, Le Hunte gives us five generations of seekers. Her account of what they find and what they lose is irresistible. I couldn’t put it down.”Geraldine Brooks, Pullitzer Prize winning author of March“This intricate tale moves across continents and time as it maps the reaches of the soul. Is Le Hunte an Anglo-Indian Allende? Or even a female Rushdie? You decide in a very worthwhile read.” Helen Elliott, Vogue.To buy a copy of The Seduction of Silence please visit www.bemlehunte.com or www.Amazon.com

In the tradition of Bem Le Hunte's acclaimed novels, The Seduction of Silence and There, Where the Pepper Grows, this is a spiritual and emotional journey like no other – a richly realised and hugely entertaining story that straddles cultures, continents and generations.An encounter with Elephants with Headlights is a collision between east and west, modernity and tradition – between driverless cars and ancient lore – and a world that needs revolutionary reappraisal. In this world, Savitri, named after a Goddess, refuses outright to marry anyone. Her brother, Neel is intent on marrying an Australian girl called Mae, much to the displeasure of their mother, Tota, and father, Siddarth. But do they have the power to command love or destiny? Only the family astrologer, Arunji, knows, yet his truth is tempered by obligations to the family that transformed his life.Characters we come to love and care for teeter on the brink of a radically altered future, leaving...