Susan Johnson, who seems to be blogging more as the publication of her novel approaches, has come to the conclusion that she just isn't going to read ANY reviews of her new work. This is probably a good thing from a writer's perspective: if it's a bad review you'll only get worried or annoyed, and if it's a good review it won't make one skerrick of difference and you'll only get worried. There's a pattern there.
"The Australian" newspaper challenges the new Rudd government to "fix" the study of literature in Australia.
You might struggle to find new editions of many Australian classics but the second-hand market offers many opportunities: provided you can afford it.
Ben Peek's story "The Funeral, Ruined" is now available on the web.
Melissa Bellanta writes of larrikins in Brisbane: "'The larrikin loves Saturday night', wrote a journalist for the Brisbane Courier in December 1888, 'and in all the glory of high heels -- of the French pattern -- bell-bottomed pants, and bobtailed coats, decked with many buttons, he propels himself against hotel walls ... and bespatters the fooway with his copious expectoration'." It's the "bell-bottomed pants" I particularly object to.
Regarding the Sydney Writers' Festival
Jonathan Shaw attended Jeanette Winterson's opening address: "It was a terrific speech about the centrality of creativity and art to human experience, imagination as a necessity rather than a luxury, the importance of rejecting the notion that things are important only to the degree that they make a lot of money for someone."
Judith Ridge chaired a session on speculative fiction and writes about the experience. Also featured were writers D.M. Cornish (Monster Blood Tattoo) and David Kowalski (The Company of the Dead), and editor of Aurealis magazine Stuart Mayne.
