In 2010 I... fell madly in love presented/chaired at Perth Writers Festival, Format Festival, the Australian Booksellers Association conference, Byron Bay Writers Festival, Write Around the Murray; and locally here in Melbourne for the Melbourne Writers Festival, Williamstown Literary Festival, Emerging Writers Festival, and some events for Express Media. I also attended other writerly events, such as Writers at … Continue reading Cut, print, that’s a wrap: 2010
Month: December 2010
Cult carny lit: Katherine Dunn's Geek Love
Vintage, 1989 9780375713347 (2002 edn) (Also Aus, US, UK) Miss Olympia is an emotional, hunchbacked albino dwarf, and the complex narrator of this wonderful novel. In the present, Oly secretly watches over the remaining members of her carnival-of-freaks family: her daughter, Miranda, and her mother, Crystal Lil. Why her observance and care is secretive is revealed through … Continue reading Cult carny lit: Katherine Dunn's Geek Love
Happy holidays
Two gorgeous 1930s cartoons that my sister and I used to watch every festive season. You might remember them too: Warm wishes to all my readers!
Guest review: Greg Westenberg on John Mateer’s The West: Australian Poems 1989–2009
Fremantle Press, 2010 (Aus, US, UK) 9781921361869 Remember that Renaissance sculpture you admired, briefly, in a Roman or Florentine church, cool and hard and chiselled and, perhaps a little too dramatically posed? Reading John Mateer’s collection of poems The West, gives an analogous sensation. The sculptors worked in marble that kept its material nature, the hardness … Continue reading Guest review: Greg Westenberg on John Mateer’s The West: Australian Poems 1989–2009
Sending out your books for review: a few tips
I'm a very lucky person. I receive several books in the mail each week and several more offers via email. There are a lot of books being published every day, and many that interest me or that I think would interest the readers of this blog. Literary editors, freelance reviewers, magazine and journal editors, and other … Continue reading Sending out your books for review: a few tips
Guest review: Gerard Elson on Tim Burton’s The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories
Faber/Allen & Unwin (Aus, US, UK) November 2010 (orig. 1997) 9780571270248 Reviewed by Gerard Elson It’s been a big twelve months for Tim Burton. Tim Burton: The Exhibition drew record crowds during seasons at both New York’s MoMA and Melbourne’s ACMI, and his visually brillig (though otherwise rote) Alice in Wonderland became just the sixth film … Continue reading Guest review: Gerard Elson on Tim Burton’s The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories
Johanna Adorján’s An Exclusive Love
Translated from the German by Anthea Bell (Aus, US, UK) Text Publishing, September 2010 9781921656569 Johanna Adorján’s grandparents took their own lives in October 1991. In this reserved and moving book Adorján pieces together the last day of their lives, interspersing this narrative with details of her grandparents' pasts, pieces of her own story, and musings on various related … Continue reading Johanna Adorján’s An Exclusive Love
'I want to read that, too!' Wanting to know and be everything (but then take my time with something)
The Christmas party season is in full swing. I've forgotten names, drank too much, jumped on a trampoline, been told secrets, held hands with sweaty strangers (swing dancing), stuttered (kinda a new one) and swapped WIP stories with emerging and published writers. There's a lot of pressure to be in the know. To have read … Continue reading 'I want to read that, too!' Wanting to know and be everything (but then take my time with something)
Guest review: Elizabeth Bryer on Wayne Macauley’s Other Stories
Black Pepper November 2010 9781876044664 (Aus) Reviewed by Elizabeth Bryer Other Stories brings together Melbourne-based Wayne Macauley’s output over the past decade and counting. The collection is filled with ‘other’ stories—tales that are other, or outside the mainstream, in a double sense. They are other in subject, given that they are stories that trace … Continue reading Guest review: Elizabeth Bryer on Wayne Macauley’s Other Stories
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