A sun-drenched and possibly superficial series of blog posts Around 9pm on Wednesday night I rolled into Gold Coast airport. My talented friend Omar Musa was on the same bus into Byron and we decided we should go out and wreak some havoc. Havoc was kebabs and a quiet pub where a young blonde man by … Continue reading Byron Bay Writers Festival 2010 diary, part 1
Byron time
A quick post, lit-lovelies. I'm on a laptop near the beach (sort-of) but I'm posting between my workshop this morning (which was so fantastic) and a radio interview, while lining up another radio interview and catch-ups and trying to answer a few emails. Who has time to read? Just wanted to say, I'll be charging … Continue reading Byron time
Guest review: Greg Westenberg on Maxine Clarke’s Gil Scott Heron is on Parole
Gil Scott Heron is on Parole Maxine Beneba Clarke Picaro Press Reviewed by Greg Westenberg The rhythm: insistent, consistent, beat-heavy in places but with enough sunlight in the words to take us out of the club, into a community’s irregular syncopation; the rhythm, that I couldn’t always get (white boys, everybody knows it, can’t … Continue reading Guest review: Greg Westenberg on Maxine Clarke’s Gil Scott Heron is on Parole
Alex y Robert by Wena Poon: virtual book tour
I met the talented, vivacious Singapore-born American writer Wena Poon last October, sharing a taxi ride from Denpasar airport to Ubud, Bali, for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. In that taxi and during her panels I learnt that Wena was dauntingly 'together' - interweaving careers in writing and Law, travelling the world, and seeming like she … Continue reading Alex y Robert by Wena Poon: virtual book tour
Countdown to Byron Bay Writers Festival
I've been in a lot of aeroplanes lately - flying out from Melbourne, flying in novels, and in dreams. Sometimes the ports look similar. Familiar, unfamiliar. My life is literature, is writing, is reading, and always passion, and there are good and bad things about being intertwined with fiction, about consistent imagining. It can be expansive, … Continue reading Countdown to Byron Bay Writers Festival
Guest review: Sam Cooney on The Big Issue no. 359: Toasty Tales fiction special
The Big Issue no. 359: Toasty Tales fiction special Available now from street vendors, launched Wednesday 21 July at Readings Carlton Reviewed by Sam Cooney For me, The Big Issue is like a tub of Neapolitan ice-cream. It’s reliable. It’s unpretentious and doesn’t pretend to be anything except exactly what it is. You buy it every … Continue reading Guest review: Sam Cooney on The Big Issue no. 359: Toasty Tales fiction special
Guest review: Elizabeth Bryer on Josephine Rowe’s How a Moth Becomes a Boat
How a Moth Becomes a Boat Josephine Rowe Hunter Publishers, 2010 (Aus) 9780980397420 Reviewed by Elizabeth Bryer In Meanjin 67:2, 2008, Wayne Macauley describes the painstaking process he underwent in his search for a publisher for his allegorical novel, Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe, which went on to receive rave reviews and was even picked … Continue reading Guest review: Elizabeth Bryer on Josephine Rowe’s How a Moth Becomes a Boat
Last weekend’s literary connectivity, and what I’ve been reading lately
On the weekend I was up in sunny Brisbane for the Australian Booksellers Association 2010 conference. It’s a conference for members and friends of the ABA – so, booksellers, publishers, and some librarians and media. I was officially there as a ‘blogger’ – on a panel called ‘Customers, Connections and Communities’, with Andrew McDonald from … Continue reading Last weekend’s literary connectivity, and what I’ve been reading lately
Exquisite restraint for maximum expression: an interview with Colm Tóibín (part two)
Brooklyn Colm Toibin (Aus, US) Picador 9780330425612 Part one of this interview can be found here. Tóibín has, to date, written or edited 21 books. I asked him which had been the most difficult to write, and which had been the most joyful. He said: ‘There’s a long story in the collection Mothers and Sons which I … Continue reading Exquisite restraint for maximum expression: an interview with Colm Tóibín (part two)
Exquisite restraint, maximum expression: an interview with Colm Tóibín (part one)
Brooklyn Colm Toibin (Aus, US) Picador 9780330425612 Acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín was recently in Australia for the Sydney Writers Festival as well as events in Melbourne, including one for the Wheeler Centre. I caught up with Tóibín at his Melbourne hotel to ask him some questions about writing and his latest novel Brooklyn, which I recently had … Continue reading Exquisite restraint, maximum expression: an interview with Colm Tóibín (part one)
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