The Australian media is not alone in publishing the more bonkers essays, reviews and opinions, such as Jacqueline Malley’s article today from the Sydney Morning Herald. She’s having a crack at Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. It’s the story of Figaro and his fiancée Susanna and two servants of the Count Almaviva, who live in the…
If you blinked you would have missed that one of Australia’s greatest writers passed away recently. Frank Morehouse was top of the heap in the 1970s. I thought him a better writer than that bitter old crone, Patrick White. Morehouse was eclipsed by the rise of Peter Carey, Tim Winton and what I euphemistically call…
About 1000 years ago, I was a professional and creative writing programs director at RMIT. I had around 1500 students and 50 staff. I’d inherited the job from a woman who was ‘gung ho’ over all things warm and fuzzy about creative writing but left her program, Professional Writing & Editing, $250k in the red…
In a staggering volte face, the judges have awarded a first time author (although has written a play) and someone who didn’t spend $40,000 on HECS fees on a creative writing course, Australian Book of the Year. Finding herself stuck at home without a job during lockdown, Diana Reid, 26, wrote a book in five…
I sometimes use Adelaide (South Australia), as a backdrop to my stories. It is one of the weirdest and scariest places on earth. It’s known for sex crimes and where ideas go to die. The story below is par for the course. “Former Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes says he was left feeling distressed and…
OK, I’ve been hammering Australian writers for their blinkered subject matter for a while now. I make no secret that the biggest influences on my writing are American writers. Some old and some new. I’ve included a few below: Anything by Lucia Berlin, Ursula K. Le Gunn (espc ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’),…
With monotonous regularity, sections of the Australian media ‘rebirths’ a dead singer from an alternative Australian band, due to his or her ‘cult’ status. Think of The Saints (the recent death of Chris Bailey) and The Go Betweens (Grant McLennan). There’s talk of the cultish uniqueness of the lead singer or guitarist (rarely the drummer,…
Farrah Tomazin in The Sydney Morning Age has written a cracking expose on banning books. It’s a broadside at hardline Christians in the USA. They’ve been doing this since ‘The Origin of the Species’ came out but it’s worth a story. Ms Tomazin failed to mention the role Cancel Culture has played in banning books…
Author Joan Didion, whose essays, memoirs, novels and screenplays chronicled contemporary American life, has died at the age of 87 from complications from Parkinson’s disease. “Didion was one of the country’s most trenchant writers and astute observers. Her best-selling works of fiction, commentary, and memoir … are considered modern classics,” Penguin Random House said in…
The real cost of launching a literary career? Imprisoning the wrong man for 16 years. A rape conviction at the centre of a memoir by award-winning author Alice Sebold has been overturned because of serious flaws with the 1982 prosecution. Anthony Broadwater, who spent 16 years in prison, was cleared on Monday by a judge…
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