Breath, Tim Winton, Penguin, 9780143009580 (Aus, US) Breath is my first Tim Winton. Yes, I know. He's just not someone I had gotten to yet. And yes, I will read Cloudstreet, eventually. Last week, Breath was awarded our nation's most prestigious literary prize - the Miles Franklin Literary Award, which is for books that in … Continue reading Thoughts on 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Breath, by Tim Winton
Chilled-out Sunday round-up
It's another Tequila sunrise... (For Ken & Teela, the Dude, Brian Wilson bartender, and especially Owen... ) * Check this out. One-eighth Vulture is an online writing mag publishing, promoting and linking writers in two of the UNESCO cities of literature - Melbourne and Edinburgh (my two favourite cities!) The site is very new at the … Continue reading Chilled-out Sunday round-up
Tom Cho: a ‘responsive’ interview
Tom Cho's surprising, funny, sexy, postmodern short story collection Look Who's Morphing is out now with Giramondo, ISBN: 9781920882549. Prompts: LiteraryMinded Answers: Tom Cho Auntie Ling Of the many impulses that the act of reading evokes, there are two that are especially irresistible. These are: 1) equating a text's narrator with its author, and 2) equating … Continue reading Tom Cho: a ‘responsive’ interview
Happy Bloomsday! Celebrating James Joyce's Ulysses
Okay, I'm only up to page 310, but I'm going to celebrate gosh darnit! Why? Because it's rude and delicious and I'm enjoying it very much. So what is it all about? you may ask. This guy (who owns 15 copies of Ulysses) explains it better than I could right now, at this half-way through … Continue reading Happy Bloomsday! Celebrating James Joyce's Ulysses
The inability to relax (an experiment in the confessional)
It's not often that I feel calm. I have supernovas going off in my head, squirmy things in my muscles and fingertips. I'm sore all the time because I exercise so much. It's one of the only ways to expend the energy, wear me down, expend the effort effort effort. And I love the zing … Continue reading The inability to relax (an experiment in the confessional)
Embracing the medium: what makes a successful cultural blog?
The following article is a slightly amended version of the speech I gave during the Emerging Writers' Festival panel The Revolution Will Be Downloaded, May 2009. In my reading of cultural blogs (particularly literary blogs), and through a growing audience for LiteraryMinded, I have found that some recurring elements exist in blogs which could be deemed successful. My measure of … Continue reading Embracing the medium: what makes a successful cultural blog?
Mark Twain made 'em laugh: an edited extract from Susannah Fullerton's Brief Encounters: Literary Travellers in Australia
The following is an edited extract from Brief Encounters: Literary Travellers in Australia by Susannah Fullerton. Published by Picador Australia, June 2009. Mark Twain came to Australia billed as 'the funniest man in the world' and Australians loved his dry humour and stories... Their expectation was by now at fever pitch, their bodies perspiring from … Continue reading Mark Twain made 'em laugh: an edited extract from Susannah Fullerton's Brief Encounters: Literary Travellers in Australia
Big fat round-up post + May haiku comp winners
Hey gang. Are you cool? Be cool. Only got about a quarter of the response to this month's haiku comp - doh! The them was 'the richness of the internet'. Thinking I might have to do it only every two months, or perhaps the topic was hard? Nonetheless, there were a few good'uns. The winner … Continue reading Big fat round-up post + May haiku comp winners
Through the Clock's Workings
Through the Clock's Workings is out! This is the anthology from the Remix My Lit project, edited by Amy Barker. My mash-up story 'Again, the Healing Tickle (the Way Black Glitters)' is the very last one in the collection. Here's the blurb for this very unique (and interactive) collection: Through the Clock's Workings Edited by … Continue reading Through the Clock's Workings
Making sense of the surrounding chaos: Sarah Manguso on The Two Kinds of Decay
Not only was Sarah Manguso's body completely weakened by a rare neurological disease (where the antibodies in her own blood would poison her), but she dealt with other levels of illness, such as the effect of strong drugs she had to take, and deep depression. But everything I tried to write about The Two Kinds … Continue reading Making sense of the surrounding chaos: Sarah Manguso on The Two Kinds of Decay
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