Picador, 9781742610832 September 2012 (buy paperback, ebook) A version of this article was originally published in The Big Issue no. 415. Somewhere around the six-week mark of Emily Maguire’s 2008 visit to Hanoi, she realised she was in love: 'Actual love—the kind where you wake up smiling in anticipation, and you fall asleep deeply, deeply happy every … Continue reading Home, strange home: Fishing for Tigers by Emily Maguire
Emily Maguire
Month of reading
I was stoked this month to be asked to contribute the 'month of reading' column to The Victorian Writer, the magazine of Writers Victoria. Below is a version of my column. — I was recently held up at Melbourne airport for seven hours. I tried to see it as a blessing: pure, uninterrupted reading time. I … Continue reading Month of reading
Guest review: Lisa Down on Kill Your Darlings: Issue Four
Kill Your Darlings: Issue Four (Aus) Ed: Rebecca Starford January 2011 reviewed by Lisa Down Call me a philistine, but I wasn’t previously familiar with the Australian quarterly Kill Your Darlings. It means I don’t have a standard by which I can judge this edition but I walked away satisfied that it had provided the … Continue reading Guest review: Lisa Down on Kill Your Darlings: Issue Four
Go west! Perth Writers Fest 2010 program released
I've never been to Western Australia. Isn't that nuts? I've been to Europe, I've been to the USA and I've been to Asia, but never the other side of my own country. Lucky for me, the lovely organisers of Perth Writers Festival have invited me along this year. Besides my sessions, I am expecting to catch … Continue reading Go west! Perth Writers Fest 2010 program released
This cumulative kind of effect when you stop: an interview with Emily Maguire on Smoke in the Room, part two
Part One of this interview can be found here. Pictured: Emily Maguire and I before the Sleepers Salon in October. I ask Maguire about the setting. Is it pertinent for this story to be set in Sydney? She says it probably could have been a few cities, but ‘western Sydney is – the cliché is … Continue reading This cumulative kind of effect when you stop: an interview with Emily Maguire on Smoke in the Room, part two
This cumulative kind of effect when you stop: an interview with Emily Maguire on Smoke in the Room, part one
In Smoke in the Room (Aus), three characters end up in a share house in Sydney. Katie works on instinct and is weighted by an overwhelming empathy. Adam, an American, is grieving and needs to save money to get home. Graeme, an aid worker, has rid himself of possessions and simplified his existence. In this … Continue reading This cumulative kind of effect when you stop: an interview with Emily Maguire on Smoke in the Room, part one
Princesses & Pornstars by Emily Maguire
Text, 2008 (Australia) 9781921351310 Update: now also available in a YA edition Your Skirt's Too Short: Sex, Power, Choice Emily Maguire's Princesses & Pornstars is a call to arms. It's a highly intelligent, entertaining, and sometimes endearingly awkward rant. To have a feminist stance is not just to talk about women, Maguire argues, it's to talk … Continue reading Princesses & Pornstars by Emily Maguire
Sunday Driver! *Shakes Fist*
Hello lovelies, not long now until Christmas! I get to go for a wonderful break (which will still include reading and blogging, don't worry) in the land of the Big Banana, Coffs Harbour. Can't wait to see my sister, my folks, my Nanna, and bestie Tania. Lots of beach time, and possibly a 'prop' party … Continue reading Sunday Driver! *Shakes Fist*