RVS College students visit Book Fair at Rabindra Bhawan

Arts & Culture, Books

Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, Nov 22: RVS College of Engineering and Technology organized an educational visit to the book fair at Rabindra Bhawan, in association with the National Digital Library of India (NDLI).
A group of 50 students, led by Dr. Rahi Das Kumar, Jaymala Dhruva Sundi, and women’s hostel warden Bina Ambastha, explored the fair, purchasing books on literature, science, and technology from various stalls. Publishers also offered discounts on select titles.
After the visit, students held a discussion on ‘The Importance of Books in Human Life,’ guided by Dr. Rahi Das and Jaymala Dhruva Sundi. Dr. S.P. Singh, the College’s central library in-charge, highlighted the success of the program and its alignment with NDLI’s objectives.
The visit not only inspired students to appreciate literature and knowledge but also encouraged many to register with NDLI, amplifying the event’s impact.

Scientists watch as galaxy smashes into another at two million mph

Science and Health

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreScientists have watched in unprecedented detail as galaxies smashed into each other at two million miles per hour.The team used one of Earth’s most powerful telescopes to observe as galaxies collided with each other.When the two struck each other, they let out a shockwave similar to that made by a jet fighter when it reaches the speed of sound. That is among the most powerful phenomena in the universe.It was observed in Stephan’s Quintet, a nearby galaxy group made up of five galaxies first sighted almost 150 years ago.The blue colours indicate older, low-energy plasma, while the orange and yellow areas mark regions that are being actively energised (M. Arnaudova/University of Hertfordshire/WEAVE consortium/PA)

Author Bill Newcott to sign new books Nov. 23

Arts & Culture, Books

Browseabout Books will host Bill Newcott for a signing of his newest book, “More Right Wrong Turns,” from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 23, at 133 Rehoboth Ave., Rehoboth Beach.A follow-up volume to Newcott’s 2021 book, “All the Right Wrong Turns,” the book’s subtitle calls it a collection of “continued true (and sometimes twisted) tales of Coastal Delaware from the back roads to the beaches.” The subject matter draws upon new material and adapted versions of articles he’s written for Delaware Beach Life magazine.
Newcott, a Lewes resident, is a film critic for The Saturday Evening Post. He was formerly the National Geographic magazine expeditions editor and a longtime travel editor for AARP the Magazine.

Blue Origin launches 6 tourists to the edge of space

Travel

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched six space tourists on a high-speed dash to the edge of space and back Friday, giving the passengers — including a husband and wife making their second flight — about three minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this world view before the capsule made a parachute descent to touchdown at the company’s west Texas flight facility.Science popularizer and TV host Emily Calandrelli shed tears of elation after landing, telling an interviewer “oh my gosh, when we got to weightlessness, I immediately turned upside down and looked at the planet, and then there was so much blackness, there was so much space! I didn’t expect to see so much space!”

New Shepard passenger Emily Calandrelli raises her arms in elation after the 10-minute sub-orbital space flight ended with a smooth parachute descent to touchdown.

Blue Origin webcast

“And I kept saying, like, that’s our planet,” she added, wiping away tears. “That’s our planet. It was the same feeling I got when my kids were born, and I was like, that’s my baby, that’s my baby. I had that same feeling like where I’m seeing it for the first time. It was just beautiful. Oh my God.”

Calandrelli, developer Marc Hagle and his wife Sharon, both making their second New Shepard flight, and three other entrepreneurs — Austin Litteral, James Russell and Henry Wolfond — blasted off from Bezos’ sprawling ranch near Van Horn, Texas, at 10:30 a.m. EST. Accelerated to nearly three times the speed of sound, the crew capsule was released to fly on its own about two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft climbs away from the company’s west Texas launch site to kick off its 28th sub-orbital spaceflight, the ninth with passengers on board.

Blue Origin

As it continued coasting upward, the passengers were able to unstrap and float about the cabin during about three minutes of weightlessness, taking in the view of Earth below and space above from the largest windows ever built into a spacecraft.

“We got to MECO (main engine cutoff) and it was like BOOM! I’m not scared any more!” Calandrelli said. “That kick in your pants from (capsule-booster) separation is wild. It is wild. I had to tell my brain, like, this is normal, like, this is expected, it’s supposed to be a kick in the pants.”

The New Shepard booster flew itself back to a picture-perfect landing after boosting the crew capsule to the edge of space.

Blue Origin webcast

The launching marked Blue Origin’s 28th New Shepard flight and the ninth with passengers on board. The company has now launched 47 individuals to space, including Bezos and three who have flown twice. It’s not known how much Blue Origin charges for a ticket, but the company said Litteral won his seat in a contest sponsored by Whatnot, a livestream shopping platform.

He’s Hosted ‘This Old House’ for 20 Years — These Are His Best Tips for Growing a Home Services Business

Business News

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
After 20-plus years hosting the TV show This Old House, Kevin O’Connor has developed a skill most people take their whole lives to master: saying no. As a small business owner, it’s tempting to say yes to every opportunity, but after working with tradespeople for the past two decades, O’Connor warns against this habit, both professionally and personally.”‘No’ is powerful,” he says. “Everyone wants you for something, and it’s up to you to prioritize. And ‘no’ is the way of sending that message — that’s not important enough for you or me. ‘Yes’ means it’s very important.”The same applies to small business owners excited about their own new endeavors. It’s tempting to agree to every opportunity to ensure there’s work on the books and money coming in. However, O’Connor says a packed schedule isn’t always a productive one.

“Understanding the concept of opportunity cost is important because every job you take means that you’re filled for that period of time, and you can’t take another one,” he explains. “So now you’re in a position where if you take a lesser quality job, you’ve blocked an entire chunk of your calendar from taking a higher quality job.”Related: Here’s How the Founder of PopUp Bagels Turned a Backyard Baking Project Into a Viral Sensation

He admits making that judgment call is tough. Knowing whether you made the right decision can be scary. However, O’Connor says when you have a robust business plan that can withstand those dry spells, you’ll be more successful than if you’d said yes to everything.”[Small businesses should] be lean enough that they don’t have to lay people off when it gets slow but be big enough that they’re able to adjust and bring in revenue in various ways,” he says.When small businesses agree to a job, O’Connor says the business plan, specifically three essential pieces — collaboration, specialization and productivity — will have made all the difference.Home services businesses routinely depend on subcontractors or outside specialty firms. Although it might be tempting to see external services as supporting roles with your own business as the hero, the reality is everyone must work together to deliver the project. O’Connor says it’s not about winning because it’s not a competition. It’s about succeeding together.

Related: This Miami Business Took a Bold Risk By Offering a New Type of Service — Here’s How It Paid Off”Collaboration is essential,” he says. “To avoid it, to try to win or beat out those other people you rely on [is a mistake]. There are a lot of people who wash out of our industry, and that’s a big part of the reason why — because they do not know how to integrate those services. They’re trying to win as opposed to trying to succeed.”O’Connor also stresses the importance of specialization, specifically letting those with the right expertise handle the jobs they’re trained for. It’s easy for a business owner to shoulder the burden of multiple roles, but this mentality isn’t productive or good for mental health.”So many times the folks who run these small specialized trade companies think they’re going to be the finance person as well — that they’re going to do the invoicing, materials, pricing, collection, advertising — and it doesn’t make much sense,” O’Connor says. “They would never send the plumber in to trim out the kitchen. Why would you think you’ll be the person who does the finance?”

The final piece of the business plan is productivity, which O’Connor believes is the “secret sauce” for scaling.”It’s the definition of doing more with less,” he says. “I have always seen that the successful companies that have grown from small to bigger, from two people to 70 people, are the ones who embrace specialization and productivity wholeheartedly. And they’re constantly chasing it. Everything they do: Is this making me more productive? Is this making my employees more productive? Is it making it easier for them, more efficient?”Related: She Was Unhappy in Her Job as a Lawyer, So She Started a Business Serving a Comfort Food Staple — And Made MillionsEmbracing collaboration, specialization and productivity changes the game for businesses. But what exactly does it mean to build a brand in this industry? O’Connor says it’s all about authenticity. He recalled a general contractor, Zack Dettmore, who built a brand simply by being himself.

“He makes his story so authentic. He treats his people and customers so well that people start flocking to him,” O’Connor says. “Over 90% of his new employees find him via social media. They come to him and say, ‘I’d like to work for you.’ And the same thing goes with client acquisition.”When it comes to this line of work, O’Connor advises business owners not to chase but to attract, not to win alone but to succeed together, and to build up the courage to say no.Related: GoDaddy’s 3 Best Tips for Small Business Marketing SuccessWith more than two decades of experience, O’Connor has found the most successful businesses are the ones that follow these key principles:

Don’t ignore critical feedback. Use it as an opportunity to grow and move forward.Attract young talent. Understand what young professionals care about, and be okay knowing it’s different from when you were their age. They’ll have a unique and valuable perspective to keep the business tuned into current trends.Minimize opportunity costs by saying no. Just because you’re filling the calendar with work doesn’t mean you’re maximizing revenue. Step back and create a business plan to harness the opportunities that will have the biggest positive impact on your business.Optimize productivity. Delegate work to specialists, collaborate with other businesses on complex projects and practice how to identify opportunities that serve your business goals.Be an authentic storyteller. Connect with your target audience in meaningful ways to build trust. To better understand what’s authentic to you, assess your values and what you want your business to represent.Listen to the episode below to hear directly from Kevin O’Connor, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Pandora.Editorial contributions by Erin Palmero and Kristi Lindahl

How Did Scientists Discover Smoking Causes Cancer?

Science and Health

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, take regular exercise, and don’t smoke – probably the three most common health messages we all hear. The fact that smoking tobacco is a major risk factor for lung cancer – as well as numerous other diseases – is so well accepted now that it’s hard to imagine a time when doctors actually recommended smoking to their patients. But how did the tide start to turn?As recounted in a 2013 article to commemorate its 50th anniversary, then US Surgeon General Luther L. Terry released a seminal report in 1964 stating that cigarette smoking caused lung and laryngeal cancer. Terry went even further, noting the growing evidence of an association between tobacco use and other conditions, including emphysema, heart disease, and other cancer types.AdvertisementBack then, over half of American men and over a third of American women were active smokers. Most of us can’t remember or imagine a time when lighting up in a busy office or on an airplane was totally normal. But even centuries before, some had started to wonder whether smoking might be doing unseen harm to our health.Early evidence of the dangers of smokingOne of the earliest publications making the connection between tobacco and ill health came all the way back in 1602. According to Cancer Council New South Wales, the anonymous English author of the essay suggested that tobacco smoke could have similar effects to the soot that chimney sweeps were exposed to, and which caused well-documented occupational illnesses.Over the coming centuries, there were a handful of others who tried to alert people to the possible dangers of pipes, cigars, and eventually cigarettes, but few gained any traction with the wider public. It was only in the 20th century that lung cancer cases started to notably increase, and the number of medical reports pointing the finger at tobacco started to become harder to ignore – but that’s not for want of trying.Fearful of attracting the ire of Big Tobacco and losing a whole lot of ad revenue to boot, newspaper editors were a bit twitchy about publishing anti-smoking articles during the early and mid-20th century. Debate raged within the medical community, too, with many finding it hard to accept the growing body of evidence and struggling to understand why not everyone who smoked heavily seemed to be seeing health issues.AdvertisementAs such, even as more and more reports were being released in the 1940s and 50s, anti-smoking efforts in the US were largely being led by health nonprofits rather than legislators, and many in the general public remained uninformed about the dangers.Using a doctor and sportspeople to advertise cigarettes, as in this example from 1939, would seem totally bizarre to us today.Image credit: Wellcome Collection (public domain)The scientific caseHuman studiesLet’s rewind slightly to the 1920s and 30s, and this increase in lung cancer cases that people were beginning to observe. It’s only thanks to the burgeoning field of epidemiology that the trend was noted at all – and in turn, research into lung cancer helped solidify some of the epidemiological techniques that are still in use today.In 1939, German researcher Franz Hermann Müller performed an important case-control study. A mainstay of health research today, these studies compare two cohorts of people: the cases, who all have a particular disease or condition, and the controls, who are as similar to the cases as possible but, crucially, don’t have the disease.While not a perfect piece of research, the paper was undoubtedly significant, and concluded that smokers were more likely to develop lung cancer than nonsmokers. Subsequent similar research found the same thing, but one important thing to note about these kinds of studies is that they can’t show causation – there was no reason to assume that the smokers weren’t getting lung cancer more often due to a simple coincidence, or some other unknown factor.AdvertisementAs we entered the 1950s, however, more data was adding further weight to the idea that smoking was bad news for health. Crucially, cohort studies were also being launched. These studies follow a group of people over a period of time, tracking their habits and health outcomes to look for trends. Evidence was mounting that smokers had poorer health outcomes than their non-smoking counterparts. Animal studiesAs detailed by science historian Dr Robert Proctor in a 2011 paper, animal data also played a key part in the accumulation of evidence to link smoking to cancer. Pioneering Argentine cancer researcher Ángel H. Roffo demonstrated that tobacco smoke was carcinogenic when applied to the skin of rabbits. Similar experiments were repeated later with mice, and were widely covered in the media, with the public reaction spurring the tobacco companies to ever greater efforts to change the narrative.And honestly, it worked, at least for a time. The mouse study came out in the 1950s, and smoking didn’t peak in the US until the mid-70s.Other researchIn addition to the human and animal evidence, other damning scientific data were beginning to stack up.AdvertisementAs Proctor explains, observations of lung cells in the lab had shown how cigarette smoke could damage the cilia, tiny hair-like structures that line the airways and move mucus and trapped particles – such as the nasty components of cigarette smoke that you really don’t want to be hanging around in there.And in what might be considered one of the final nails in the coffin, remember those chimney sweeps? Well, in the 1930s, people figured out that it was a class of chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, present in tar, that was the major source of their problems. It wasn’t long afterward that others, Roffo included, noted that the same chemicals were present in tobacco smoke, giving us a plausible mechanism by which smoking might cause cancer.Where are we now?By the 1960s, things were reaching a tipping point. Health associations across the US lobbied President Kennedy to open a Presidential Commission to look into the tobacco problem, which eventually led to the 1964 Surgeon General’s report where we began this whistle-stop tour through some of the history of smoking science.Nowadays we’re more used to seeing strongly worded warning labels on cigarette packets.Image credit: Valkantina/Shutterstock.comThe World Health Organization says that tobacco kills over 8 million people around the world every year, both directly and via secondhand smoke. Today, global smoking trends are a mixed picture, with some places moving to ban tobacco, while still others scrap similar plans. But the fact that smoking increases the risk of cancer is no longer contested, and continues to inform campaigns that seek to raise awareness of the danger and encourage people to quit for good.

‘I thought, geez, this is a happy story’: Helen Garner on her footy book

Arts & Culture, Books

The acclaimed writer spent a season watching her grandson play football. The result is a story of love in the face of time’s passing.Credit: Robin CowcherNormal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeHelen Garner’s decision to write a first-person account of her grandson’s junior footy team, its travails and triumphs and her exploration of both the game and his exit from adolescence, was replete with self-doubt. She wondered whether she was up to the task of writing a happy story. Aged 81 when she began following the Flemington Colts, she was unsure whether she was capable of completing the book.Throughout The Season, Garner also flaunts her lack of footy knowledge, asking Ambrose or his footy-head father to decipher the arcane rules and rites of an obsessively followed code.“I’m used to writing about people who are in traumatic states, but they’ve lost everything and people have died and there’s been a murder or something like that,” says Garner of her excursion into footy, via a suburban under-16 team. “I thought, geez, this is a happy story. How am I going to write this?”So why do it? “I was bored. And I thought, I was, what, 81. And I thought, is it over? Am I done?”Far from it. The Season is her first standalone book – as distinct from a collection of short pieces – since the heavy-duty true crime/Greek tragedy This House of Grief, about a man who drove his sons into a dam and was convicted of murder in a trial that captivated the nation.If the sporting subject surprises some readers and denizens of Australia’s small literary village, Garner has taken on what Ron Barassi called one of the world’s great inventions – Australian Rules football – with the same approach that defines most of her writing.The Season is marked by her unsparing eye for detail and that superpower of detachment – a narrator who sees everything yet who is also deeply involved in the story, with emotional flourishes that rise when she watches her grandson.AdvertisementIt reads like she’s a visitor to a foreign country, as in Mark Twain’s account of Australia (especially the Melbourne Cup) or even Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century French nobleman, observing the United States for his tome Democracy in America.But it’s just plain old footy, too. She calls it “a nanna’s book”.Garner agrees that she came to footy as a visitor. “I couldn’t say that I know footy. I follow the Western Bulldogs. I really care about what happens there. But I don’t understand the finer points of the game,” she tells me.Helen Garner at the suburban ground where she watched her grandson play.Credit: Darren JamesThat said, Garner’s observational gifts – and sparse, effective use of language – are comparable to her favourite Bulldog Marcus Bontempelli’s in reading the game; she finds meaning in the mundane routines of footy, her grandson’s training sessions, and in watching the Bulldogs, that remind mundane footy writers of their own literary limitations. Garner locates insights into footy that the obsessive or expert don’t notice.She had kept a diary when watching “Amby” train and play for the Colts, in their western suburbs local under-16 competition, during 2023. Midway through the season, she realised that a book was feasible.Over the course of this 2023 season, Garner became a participant, which she said was evident when she began calling the Colts “we”.Advertisement“I just became emotionally involved,” she says. “I mean, I sort of scream and rave at watching the Western Bulldogs on TV, I get really emotionally involved with those matches, and you know things that I see about footy can make me burst into tears of rage like watching people boo Buddy Franklin.“[But] I’ve never had a personal connection with anyone in a team before. Ambrose has been playing since he was eight.” Ambrose’s older brother played briefly and his older sister Olive played with Melbourne University’s “Muggers”.I’m trying to write about footy and my grandson and me … A record of a season we spend together before he turns into a man and I die.Helen Garner“I just watched those girls play and they were fabulous … but I wasn’t close enough to the end of my grandmother-hood to realise that this was something, that this is my last chance to see.”At my partner’s urging, I propose that Garner and I meet at the very Kensington oval where she spent so many hours, watching the Colts complete “match sim” (simulation) and regulation drills in flood-lit evening training, along with games on weekends.She’s seated on the same bench, just behind the goals, that was her vantage for The Season – straw hat, white shirt and glasses dangling on a string over her neck. The rain soon sends us to the pavilion, where she’s prepared by packing a groundsheet we can sit on. I’ve provided coffees from a local cafe.AdvertisementThe question of why this project – and not another topic, presumably something more serious – is answered succinctly on page 92 of the book.“Why don’t I keep my mouth shut when people ask me what I’m writing? I’m surprised how many jump to the conclusion that it’s something polemical, a critical study of football culture and its place in society, informative, analytical, statistical. Really I’m trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we spend together before he turns into a man and I die.”We turn to that passage. “It’s the last grandchild and I’m suddenly thinking I’m not going to be around much longer,” Garner explains. “I reckon I’ve got maybe 10 years, touch wood. I thought my grandmother life is almost over and how can I let this go past without giving it a really good look?”She did ponder the question of why she was focused on men. “If you’re a woman in this world and you’re a feminist, you’re writing about men, there’s always this little voice saying ‘oh why aren’t you writing about women?’ And I thought ‘because I want to write about my grandson, that’s why’ – this is about me and my grandson on the deepest level. And the whole matter of women’s footy is to me a whole world apart from what I know, even though my granddaughter [played].”“I’m not scared any more.” At 82, Helen Garner no longer fears negative reactions to her work.Credit: Darren JamesSo she drove Amby to training nearly every session, watched the team and discovered a cast of characters within the team, most known by nicknames, such as “Boof”, “Meth” and “Remy.” The book has parallels with the American football classic Friday Night Lights (which Garner hasn’t yet read nor watched the fictionalised TV series) about a high school football team in a Texas oil town, in how the reader is drawn into real lives. This is less pronounced in Garner’s book – her focus is primarily Amby and herself.But as with the earlier book, you wonder how far the Colts will go. I won’t give away the ending – whether this is a fairytale or near-miss. Towards the end, Garner has a vivid dream that she finally reveals as the Colts reach their denouement.AdvertisementDid the season together change the grandmother-grandson relationship? “No, not really. It’s deepened it. As you can probably tell, we were already on pretty good terms. He’s an affectionate, open sort of kid, easy to get on with … we’ve always got on well, because I live right next door to them, so I’ve been in his life since he was born.”Garner has been living next door to her daughter Alice and her husband and their now three kids, in Flemington for 25 years. “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, bar none,” she says.The book started from a place of curiosity. “I just wanted to see what he was like as a person … I thought ‘I wonder what he’s like out there’, and it was very interesting to me to watch him functioning in the world.”The Western Bulldogs are the book’s counterpoint and subplot, since they are followed by the merged households and especially by Dave, Amby’s father, who grew up in St Albans and is visibly shattered when the Dogs are upset by West Coast. Garner had realised years earlier that “to hang with this family I was going to have to learn more about footy”.In the book, she recounts how she followed the club ever since watching the documentary Year of the Dogs (1997), her faith secured when Chris Grant, the club’s champion, explained why he’d stayed with the impecunious Bulldogs.Garner explains her conversion to the Bulldog breed thus: “He said ‘I got a letter from a young boy. “Dear Chris Grant, please don’t leave. I haven’t got much money. This is all I can give.” And he’d sticky-taped on to the letter a fifty-cent piece. So of course I couldn’t leave, could I.’Advertisement“I got off the couch, went straight to the computer with my credit card, and joined his club,” Garner writes.Garner finds much that is noble within the game. I tell her how I saw Bontempelli at the funeral of young football journalist Sam Landsberger, a matter of days before the Bulldogs played Hawthorn in the elimination final. Landsberger’s father, Jake, had served as the club doctor for decades.“I think Bont is pure class and he’s one of the players who bring the nobility of football you can’t help…” She didn’t need to finish the sentence.Garner excitedly extracts from her phone a poignant photo of Bontempelli with his arm affectionately around injured teammate Josh Bruce. “He’s just done his knee for the second time and Bont is just comforting him. That’s straight out of Virgil and Homer.”Is The Season her most personal book? That would be saying something, given her frequent mining of her experiences, her celebrated career having been launched by Monkey Grip, a grimly realistic semi-biographical novel of bohemian share-house life in 1970s Carlton and Fitzroy.Monkey Grip, I tell Garner, often comes to mind when I see “Aqua Profonda” on the wall at the Fitzroy pool. This prompts her to roll up her sleeve. “I’m marked all over from the times I spent at that pool … skin cancers I’ve got, I’m covered with the bastards.“It was worth it.”Most personal? “No, I wouldn’t say that, but it’s up there … I like to write that way. It seems to be the only way I can get a grip on things, but … I did find it a wonderful experience for me, to follow the team. I learned so much.”One of Garner’s discoveries was what she perceived of the better angels of masculinity via football.“I get sick of hearing the phrase toxic masculinity. And I know that people don’t mean to say that all masculinity is toxic, but I think that a lot of boys probably absorb it as that, there’s something about them which is irredeemably toxic. And having two grandsons I know that’s not true.“And I know there’s so much more going on in the lives of young boys that is very quiet … there’s a lot of inner struggle going on, I think, to be a boy and to turn into a man.“And I thought … I’m just going to walk around looking at men and watching what they do. And so that’s why I sprinkle through the book all those little tiny themes of men doing things that I find either hilarious or beautiful or graceful – or in the footy, brave. Like those two tradies who run to get those two kids out of the smashed bus.“I wanted to show that, I just wanted to say ’I like men and look at these things they do, and look how faithful they are to their sons, they stand in the cold and watch their sons running around [a] football ground.”Garner had been warned about the ugly parents of local footy. “I’d heard all about the brawls. But to think that’s what it’s all about is so wrong. I’ve watched these fathers, they were exemplary as fathers. They had practical love for their sons … which had found a pragmatic path to expression and I was moved by that.“I reckon by halfway through the season I could see there was a book in it.”She says she took “massive” notes – whole pages after training. “Particularly now that I’m getting older and forgetting things a lot.“By the time I realised there was a book in it, I was delighted and happy and I thought ‘I can do this’.”The embedding was organic. “I didn’t get permission – I spoke to the coach, but I already knew him. And he said ‘oh, why don’t you just turn up?’ So I turned up. And it was going to training that made all the difference. Because never before had I been to training ever, and I just loved it so much. That’s when I really sort of got hooked.”Garner’s social observations are unsparing. “I hope so.” While some writers would be forever haunted by the reaction to The First Stone – an older, second-wave feminist’s narrative and musings on the early ’90s sexual harassment scandal at the University of Melbourne’s Ormond College – Garner views this generational conflict, which became quite public, as conferring artistic freedom on her work.“And I think that I got a shock … I was really told that I’d set feminism back 20 years and I got absolutely abused. You should have seen the letters I got from people.“But after I sort of got through that, and I thought OK it’s quite bracing to be hated, and then I thought, and the best thing about [it] is I’m not scared any more. I’m not scared of people hating me for what I write, and now I’m free, and I can say what I really think and what’s before my eyes and I don’t have to sort of mould things, so I don’t offend the sensibilities of people.”She says Text, her publisher, is hoping for a crossover audience of “people who read anything you write and don’t give a shit about footy, or people who’ve never heard of you and love footy passionately”. A question the former group would want answered – in the negative – is if The Season might be her last book.“I don’t know. I’d like to think I could do another one but see I’ve always had a lot of gaps between books … I have a lot of downtime and in the downtime I used to do bits of freelance journalism just to make a living and years could go past.“I don’t want to write something just because it seems like an interesting idea. I’m always waiting for something to make me feel like I’m busting to write about it.”The Season is published by Text on November 26, $34.99. Garner is in conversation with Leigh Sales at the Capitol, Melbourne, on Nov 26; with Michael Williams at Sydney’s City Recital Hall on Nov 28; and with Kate Mildenhall at Elwood Bathers on Dec 6. Jake Niall is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via Twitter or email.Most Viewed in Culture