I've just sampled the first issue of a new ejournal called Review of Australian Fiction, which will publish a short story by one established and one emerging author each issue (fortnightly). You can subscribe to all six issues in Volume One for $12.99, or buy them individually. There will be four volumes each year. Info … Continue reading New ejournal: Review of Australian Fiction
Christos Tsiolkas
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: Raili Simojoki on Janus Faces: Ampersand Magazine, Issue 2
Sydney-based arts and culture journal Ampersand Magazine sits somewhere between literary journal, art glossy, and street mag. Eschewing cool irony, it explores notions of humanity and societal change through rare, unorthodox topics with a historical or technological bent. The publisher, Ampersand, is now the local distributor of niche artistic and literary journals like New York’s Cabinet Magazine and San Francisco’s The … Continue reading Guest review: Raili Simojoki on Janus Faces: Ampersand Magazine, Issue 2
‘Obsolescence’ (an extract)
My short story 'Obsolescence' is the story representing the country of Norway (and the city of Bergen) in The Lifted Brow 6: Atlas. There are stories, songs, poems, illustrations and limericks representing every country in the world in this amazing, ambitious issue (book + 2 CDs). I'm so happy to be among contributors like Eddy Current … Continue reading ‘Obsolescence’ (an extract)
Guest review: Tom Conyers on Readings and Writings: Forty Years in Books
Jason Cotter and Michael Williams (eds) 2009 9781740668217 With Readings and Writings: Forty Years in Books, there doesn’t appear to have been an overriding theme or subject limitation placed on the contributors. Instead, the writers involved, who have all had supportive associations with Readings Books & Music (Melbourne) over the years, are given free reign. … Continue reading Guest review: Tom Conyers on Readings and Writings: Forty Years in Books
Melbourne Writers Festival 2009 diary part eight: why Australian literature?
Instead of doing this session by session (as the last two days are a blur) I'll just write it as it comes out. * First of all, Why Australian Literature? looked at our national literature and it's current 'crisis', that of globalisation and the possible 'swamping' of other voices and literatures. The panel featured Peter … Continue reading Melbourne Writers Festival 2009 diary part eight: why Australian literature?
Melbourne Writers Festival 2009 diary part five: words like triangles (a further experiment in the confessional)
This post is a creative, experimental mash-up of personal experience plus one of the poems Bernhard Schlink read on Sunday 23 August in RMIT Capitol Theatre, in a session called 'Pleasure and Pain: Poetry and the Body' at Melbourne Writers Festival. The poem is called 'Ballad of the Outer Life' or 'Ballade des auBeren Lebens', and is by … Continue reading Melbourne Writers Festival 2009 diary part five: words like triangles (a further experiment in the confessional)
It begins! Melbourne Writers Festival 2009 diary part one: champagne, the city, Mieville's guns, Amsterdam's awards and Schlink's guilt
Thursday 20/8 The elevator ride up to the Text Publishing par-tay on Thursday evening was devastatingly long (I'm a semi-claustrophobe, to add to my other semi-disorders). I met up with Kathy Charles beforehand (a Text author) to discuss my launching of her book, Hollywood Ending. The champagne flowed, the conversations were half-chewed like the piece … Continue reading It begins! Melbourne Writers Festival 2009 diary part one: champagne, the city, Mieville's guns, Amsterdam's awards and Schlink's guilt
Crime, ghosts and danger
This song has been the soundtrack to my week. It has moved all its furniture in some already-crammed hallways of my mind and played out on repeat. Particularly the piano solo. And the force of his voice when he sings so roll up and see. And now you get to read about all my schemes and adventuring, … Continue reading Crime, ghosts and danger
Christos Tsiolkas + Nam Le: award winners
In honour of the recent awards won by two authors I admire very much, I thought we could revisit my interviews with them. First of all, which awards were these? Christos Tsiolkas won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book, awarded at the Auckland Writers' and Readers' Festival last week, for The Slap. See the full details here. … Continue reading Christos Tsiolkas + Nam Le: award winners
