The Full Report

Spotted at the A&U 20th Anniversary party:

• Champagne
• Large and billowy cockatoos
• Views of the harbour bridge
• Smashing frocks
• Seafood
• Champagne
• Small bowls of tasty noms
• Authors
• Agents
• Booksellers
• Directors and CEOs
• A Miles Franklin-winning author, an agent, a bookseller and a chairman each making an excellent speech.
• Editors
• Publicists
• Designers
• Illustrators
• Printers
• Typesetters
• Publishers
• IT dudes
• Publishing assistants
• Financial wranglers
• Rights managers
• Sales managers
• Office managers
• Media types
• Literary mag types
• Luminaries
  
• Name tags*
• Seafood
• Champagne
• A luminous white suit
• Delicious little mushroom tart things
• Champagne
• A contortionist, a hoop twirler, a juggler
• Floor-length gowns
• An author showing everyone her Spanx**
• A live band
• Animated conversations
• Beautifully be-suited gentlemens
• Hordes of literati at play
• Snappy moves on the dance floor
• Seafood
• Champagne***
• A long queue at the cloakroom
• Goodbye kisses

And photographers...




* And eyes angled furtively to enable reading of name tags without appearing to ogle bosoms.
** For the curious. (If you DARE.)
*** We believe there were other beverages available, but we chose to focus our attentions on the champagne.

Happy 20th Anniversary, A&U!

I'm putting on my top hat,
Tying up my white tie,
Brushing off my tails.
I'm duding up my shirtfront,
Putting in the shirt studs,
Polishing my nails.

On Friday evening, Onions and Affiliates will be getting glad rags on, doing the hot-shoe shuffle, raising a glass and generally puttin' on the ritz to celebrate 20 years of independent publishing in Australia.

We expect it will be just like this:




Or maybe this*:




Or maybe even this:





Well, did you evah?

What a swell party, a swell party, a swellegant, elegant party this is!

We promise a full report afterwards, but in the meantime you may enjoy this:

*Sans the awful Mickey Rooney bits, obvs