I reread On Chesil Beach last weekend and it’s still one of the saddest and most beautiful books I know. Ian McEwan’s work has great soul; such a gift to our world. Other books I’ve happily revisited in the last two months include: Looking for Alibrandi (Melina Marchetta) I was given a pretty presentation copy
My story “Pelts” is being published in Spineless Wonders’ poem/micro-fiction anthology Writing To The Edge later in June. I’m in great company as the anthology includes invited authors and finalists from the 2013 joanne burns Award, judged by novelist and creative writing lecturer Shady Cosgrove. Ms Cosgrove said the anthology contains “tight, thoughtful writing that
The eight stories in Lorrie Moore’s new collection Bark may not have the dazzling urgency of pieces from earlier collections but they do leave traces as if you’ve been bitten. Why? They broach dark territory with light relief Moore wades straight in to the mess of human disappointment, disillusionment and dislocation with characters that are
1. The character Beiruti recluse Aaliya Sohbi says she suffers the neuroses of a writer without the talent. Her hair is too blue, her back is too knotty and her thoughts twist through memories of her volatile past and the scores of books she’s read and translated. She’s grumpy, lonely, ageing, witty, obsessive and unpractised
Next Tuesday, May 20, I’m pleased to be taking part in the inaugural Penguin Random House National Book Bloggers Forum at the Random House Australia offices in North Sydney. It’s an interesting and informative program and I’m particularly looking forward to meeting the winner of the 2013 Best Australian Blog Competition blogger and author Sneh Roy.
Her golden hair, her leopard print dress and her wedding band … The woman’s allure was irresistible, her life lessons the kind that cause a young man to live a little, question a bit and grow up a lot … What are we talking about? The debut novel of 21-year-old New Zealander Sebastian Hampson that
“At home in our own skin” is a phrase used elegantly by David Malouf in a poem written for Chris Wallace-Crabbe as his fellow poet approached his 80th birthday. Malouf, one of Australia’s finest living writers, turned 80 on March 20. Two books, Earth Hour (a poetry collection in which the Wallace-Crabbe poem appears) and
Black humour, a detective who’s theologically literate and a chimp called Django … A tax on atheism, monologues about mirror neurons and a chillingly Chandler-esque atmosphere … This literary thriller by Diego Marani has raised Catholic hackles and garnered good reviews. Dare you hunt God’s Dog down? What are we talking about? Papal policeman Domingo
Do you need to have read George Eliot’s Middlemarch to be a fully realised human being? Rebecca Mead, author of The Road to Middlemarch, believes so — and says she is barely exaggerating in making her claim. Mead is a British-born author and New Yorker journalist whose love affair with George Eliot’s famed work began
The Stella Prize, a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing, this week announced the 2014 Stella Prize longlist: Letter to George Clooney by Debra Adelaide Moving Among Strangers by Gabrielle Carey Burial Rites by Hannah Kent Night Games by Anna Krien Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane Boy, Lost by
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