Why Australia Doesn’t Need The Reader
One of my favourite pieces in Volume 2 of The Reader is ‘Why Australia Doesn’t Need Another Literary Journal’ by Torpedo editor Chris Flynn. From the title, you can guess the subject matter: if you’re...
View ArticleThe Evanescence of Print
In November of 2009 I interviewed Sophie Cunningham for my blog (part one here, part two here), as I was interested both in her on-hold career as a novelist and the changes she had made since taking...
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Is there a doctor in the house?: Zoë Sadokierski
Welcome to our first ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ profile – a badly named but admiring look at the fascinating work of literary PhDs. A little while ago, I came across Zoë Sadokierski’s PhD...
View ArticleThe Unspeakable
I was recently witness to a whispered confession forced out after a bottle of wine. A girlfriend of many years’ standing, writhing as if in pain and almost gagging, said ‘I shouldn’t have had them’....
View ArticleA paler world: book culture in a jiffy bag?
One of the most depressing days of my bookselling career came in late December of 2010, deep in the Christmas gift trade. It wasn’t that sales were lousy or the weather was extreme or any of the other...
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The Meanjin Literary Smackdown
The Meanjin Tournament of Books is a literary stoush that seeks to name the Great Australian Novel. With sixteen book titles, the round robin-style competition has four judges pitting book against...
View ArticleThe Meanjin Tournament of Books and shared reading experiences
One of the reasons I set out to read along with the Meanjin Tournament of Books was because I’m interested in the idea of shared reading experiences. ‘Social reading’ is a phrase that we are starting...
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Empowering women in developing communities: On Open Field
When I was young, I lived in a house at the top of a hill on a dead-end street. Our suburb was barely serviced by buses and had no train station. We never locked our front door, and the back door was...
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Public and private: On writing zines
When I told my family I’d be moving back to central Queensland, they were equal parts thrilled and concerned. I’d accepted a job with Australia’s biggest commercial radio network, delivering news...
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