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Let’s leave the sad girl novelists behind and look at Malcolm Knox’s novel The Life, which was published in 2011. It doesn’t matter that it was written by a man, or woman or a hungry Labrador. It’s a standout in Australian literary fiction. His main character, Dennis is a fat, has-been surfer who has stewed his brain…

It came to me in a dream, like John Lennon’s dream of flaming pie and a voice which said, ‘You men shall be Beatles”. My dream said sad girl novelists (see previous post) are channelling Taylor Swift. The world is ‘Tay Tay’ed’ with screaming and crying female fans in their teens and 20s, dressed in brightly…

I thought sisters were doing it for themselves. ‘I am women, hear me roar… ‘, that sort of thing.  Why are girls — or white university-educated women in their 20s and 30s — so miserable? Is it because all men are rapists and child molesters? Is it because it’s they’ve run out of SSRi’s? Is…

An ‘ordure’ is my collective noun for a group of oestrogen-driven, ageing neurotics, who ‘taught’ screenwriting at RMIT many years ago. They were older women who couldn’t teach. Students spent two hours of a three hour teaching period watching movies. Fuck me dead. They got the job because they helped my predecessor write the course….

Ah, the sound of bat on willow. A gin and tonic and feet up in front of the box to watch the Australian test team feted – not for having two senior members as cheats – but for being dinky-di, true blue arrogant millionaires. Me and cricket go back a long way. To the Chappells,…

Shock horror! According to the media, a new author created fake accounts on Goodreads and published one-star reviews of her fellow first-time novelists. Cait Corrain targeted writers who were also signed to her publisher, Del Rey Books, a sci-fi–fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House and used the fake accounts to praise her book, Crown of Starlight,…

This is censorship from people who should know better. The only way to treat bullies is to not buy their products. Hit them where it hurts most, the hip pocket. Prominent Australian artist Mike Parr has had his contract with Anna Schwartz Gallery terminated over a performance work that referenced the Israel-Gaza War. The 78-year-old…

https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-shocking-number-of-australian-men-sexually-attracted-to-children-and-teens-20231117-p5ekum.html This story caught my attention because it’s a classic example of how agenda setting works and how journalism has sunk to the lowest common denominator. In this case it’s the ‘all men are rapists’ meme. “Disturbing research into the extent of child sexual abuse has found almost one in six Australian men have sexual…

Wifedom by Anna Funder was an interesting read and it made me realise the years I studied history at university was all bullshit. Funder uses six letters by George Orwell’s first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, to write a 420 page biography and drip, drip, drip acid on his reputation. Funder claims she’s a fan of Orwell’s….

Before you enrol in an expensive and entirely inappropriate creative writing course, read Sonia Henry’s “Put your feet in the dirt, Girl’. It’s a memoir and not fiction but that doesn’t matter. If you can’t write as well as that, give it away. Her book has forward drive, characterisation through action, excellent dialogue, exceptional scene…