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Step one: Learn how to write. Step two … ?
Connor O’Brien is the author of Quiet City, an illustrated collection of short stories available in hard copy for $12 or electronically for free – if you tweet about it or post about it on your...
View Article‘How history presses on into today’: Gareth Liddiard’s ‘The Radicalisation of D’
Gareth Liddiard is known as singer and guitarist for Melbourne-based rock band The Drones. In 2010, he put out a solo record, Strange Tourist. Ben Gook’s review of Strange Tourist appears in Kill Your...
View ArticleThe Sad Fate of the Second-hand Bookshop
The lead essay of Kill Your Darlings Issue Five, by Bookseller+Publisher editor-in-chief Matthia Dempsey, considers how online book buying is affecting brick-and-mortar bookshops. Here, Amy Roil casts...
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How Patrick White Reconciled My Childhood
I transpose The Shire of the nineties with The Hills of the sixties every time I read Patrick White, and the fit is snug enough to be frightening. Especially in their misfits. So much of White’s work...
View ArticleLaying down the sword: Fatima Bhutto in conversation at the Athenaeum Theatre
Fatima Bhutto Athenaeum Theatre 7:30pm, May 18, 2011 The Bhuttos are to Pakistan what the Kennedys are to the United States, it is said. Installed in 4-inch heels, seated opposite SBS journalist Anton...
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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...
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Sleuthing story ideas
Well, leave it there, Watson. Let us escape from this weary workaday world by the side door of music. – ‘The Adventure of the Retired Colourman.’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes is the...
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...
View ArticleWhy 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...
View ArticleClik here to view.
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...
View ArticleClik here to view.
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...
View Article