CQU Press held its most glamorous literary book launch yet last Friday (Nov 12) at CQU Sydney.

It was a double-bunger launch of two new titles from CQU Press.

The first book launched was a national anthology of short stories entitled 'Best Stories Under the Sun', edited by Michael Wilding and David Myers.

The second title was a book of scandalous fictitious memoirs by David Myers, entitled 'The Bohemian Bourgeois'. The launch speaker was the formidable Dame Leonie Kramer, former Chancellor of the University of Sydney and the foundation professor of Australian literature at that university back in the 1960s.

Her address was witty and ironic and the capacity crowd of 85 book-lovers gathered on the eighth floor of CQU Sydney Campus at 333 Kent Street were appreciative of her sallies.

She pointed out that she actually appears in miniature on the front cover of 'The Bohemian Bourgeois', in a painting of the Great Hall at Sydney University by architectural painter Simon Fieldhouse, and she speculated as to why the great doors were firmly shut.

Professor Myers explained that he had once acted the role of Archangel Michael, speaking in German and medieval Latin, in a Passion Play in this Great Hall and the doors were shut so that the audience couldn’t escape before the performance was over.

Present in the distinguished audience was High Court Justice Ian Callinan who contributed a short story, 'The Cricket Bat', to the anthology 'Best Stories'. His story was singled out by a review in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' as particularly entertaining. The chief editor of 'Quadrant', Paddy McGuinness, was also present and foreshadowed reviews in the December issue of his magazine.

In his response, internationally published novelist and short story writer, Professor Michael Wilding, reminisced about how in his revolutionary days in the late 1960s he had occasionally been bailed up by Dame Leonie in the corridors of the Department of English, which in that literary era numbered over 80 lecturers.

Michael said he was frequently unshaven and barefooted, celebrating his release from the close confines of Oxford University into the bohemian sunshine of inner Sydney, but Dame Leonie had politely never referred to his grooming, or lack of it.

Other contributors to 'Best Stories Under the Sun' include winners of the Miles Franklin award, and the Christina Stead, Steele Rudd, Australian-Vogel and Age Book of the Year prizes.

Professor Myers concluded by saying that this was the only book in Australia where you could get to meet such a rich panoply of weirdos: a vampire bat with a special kiss, a female impersonator, a broken down pugilist, a bushranger matching wits with Henry Parkes, a talking trout and a heroine battling a genomics entrepreneur for her personal DNA rights in a nightmare of genetic engineering.

Photo (left): Professor David Myers with an international buyer from France ... practising his undergraduate French at the book launch of The Bohemian Bourgeois.

Photo (above): Professor David Myers sitting next to David Gibb, Professor of Anaesthetics and Emergency Surgery at UNSW. In the background Dame Leonie Kramer chats with the artist who provided the cover for The Bohemian Bourgeois, Simon Fieldhouse.