24 May 2022
Now in its fourth year, the 2022 Virtual Indigenous Film Festival is an event held exclusively online, showcasing Indigenous Australian film. This year’s event takes place from Thursday 26 May 2022, until Monday 30 May.
My Name is Gulpilil by Molly Reynolds, Off Country by John Harvey and Rhian Skirving, and Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow by Philippa Bateman (trailer featured above), are among titles being livestreamed during this year’s festival.
24 May 2022
The 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award longlist was announced this morning. An annual award, the Miles Franklin recognises outstanding works of Australian fiction.
Some familiar titles there, some new ones, either way time to update those to-be-read lists. The shortlist will be announced on Thursday 23 June 2022.
23 May 2022
The 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) shortlist has been announced. Sixty-five titles are vying for recognition in thirteen award categories, including audiobook, biography, fiction, non-fiction, children, and literary fiction.
Across these categories, together with The Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, shortlisted titles — in no particular order — include:
The winners will be named at a ceremony on the evening of Thursday 9 June 2022, at the ICC Sydney.
23 May 2022
A novel that is a contemporary re-telling of the story of nineteenth century Australian bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly? Ok, you have my attention. Such is the premise of Red (published by HarperCollins, 18 May 2022), the second novel by Sydney based Australian writer and journalist, Felicity McLean.
But McLean isn’t flippantly bandying about references to Ned Kelly merely to, you know, attract attention, she has partly based her protagonist Ruby “Red” McCoy, on the contents of Kelly’s 1879 Jerilderie letter.
It’s the early 1990s and Ruby ‘Red’ McCoy dreams about one day leaving her weatherboard house on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where her best friend, Stevie, is loose with the truth, and her dad, Sid, is always on the wrong side of the law. But wild, whip-smart Red can’t stay out of trouble to save her life, and Sid’s latest hustle is more harebrained than usual. Meanwhile, Sergeant Trevor Healy seems to have a vendetta against every generation of the McCoys.
So far only a few reviews of Red have been published, but Australian author John Purcell holds McLean’s writing in high regard:
But the novel’s greatest strength is the voice of narrator Red. I know it is loosely based on Ned Kelly’s voice from the famous [Jerilderie] letter, but it goes well beyond that. Red speaks to us as a fully formed living entity with her own ticks and wisdom. So much so that I started to believe McLean must have suffered from some kind of unholy possession throughout the writing of the book. Red’s narration overflows with colourful anecdotes, cheek and bravado. McLean’s use of language is ceaselessly inventive, coming up with the goods time and time again.
23 May 2022
The photos were taken by Dmytro Kozatsky, one of several thousand Ukrainian soldiers who managed to defend the Azovstal steel plant for almost three months, from Russian invaders. Kozatsky is now being held by the Russians as a prisoner of war.
Here’s hoping he wins an award for these images.
23 May 2022
Whina, trailer, directed by James Napier Robertson, and Paula Whetu Jones, is the story of Dame Whina Cooper, a twentieth century Māori activist and leader, who fought for Māori rights in New Zealand. Whina will screen at the 2022 Sydney Film Festival.
The daughter of a Māori chief, Josephine (‘Whina’ for short), was born in Hokianga in 1895. For nearly a century, Whina (Miriama McDowell, as younger Whina, and Rena Owen, Once Were Warriors) never stopped asserting the rights of her people and striving for unity between Māori and Pākehā. In 1975, Whina, frail but still determined, led a sacred hīkoi over 600kms, from the top of New Zealand to Parliament House in Wellington.
23 May 2022
An in-depth look at the writing of Brisbane based Australian author Trent Dalton, in particular his two bestsellers Boy Swallows Universe, and All Our Shimmering Skies, by Catriona Menzies-Pike, editor of the Sydney Review of Books.
If Dalton’s prose style skims the surfaces of his characters’ lives, so does his thinking about the moral and political world. Dalton infantilises his audience by feeding them palatable maxims about history, society and human flourishing. The themes are repeated again and again in case the rowdy kids up the back aren’t paying attention.
It’s a longer read, but well worth the time. It seems to me effectively critiquing a work of fiction — as is writing a good novel in the first place — is an art form in itself. Many of the book reviews I read — and, doubtless — write myself, essentially summarise the plot and include a few words as to the merit or otherwise of the title. There’s nothing wrong with that, when choosing what to read next I often quickly look for a consensus, before deciding what to do.
23 May 2022
Last Saturday, 21 May 2022, marked twenty five years since British band Radiohead released their third studio album Ok Computer, in 1997. To mark the occasion Ed O’Brien, the group’s guitarist, took to Instagram to share insights into the way the band thought and worked.
Wow… feels like an age away.. 1997 belonged to a different era .. we were just kids.. with unswerving focus and drive .. no partying just the desire to make better and better work.. it was fucking exciting .. people seemed to get what we were doing and the gigs were getting more powerful.
“1997 belonged to a different era”… I copy that.
21 May 2022
Some late news to hand for anyone with an interest in graphic novels, and comics, who’s in Sydney tomorrow: the Brazen Comics Festival is on at the East Sydney Community and Arts Centre, in Darlinghurst, Sunday 22 May 2022, from 10AM until 4PM.
Brazen Comics Festival is a one day comics festival. The festival will amplify, highlight, and celebrate the voices of women, non-binary, and gender diverse people in comics, and foster a connected, welcoming, and supportive community of comic fans and creators in Australia. Brazen Comics Festival is accessible and welcoming to all.
21 May 2022
Made up of thirty-seven short films, The Impact, trailer, counts down the final two hours on Earth before a catastrophic meteor strike. Grim storyline aside, The Impact is a feat of filmmaking, with fifty directors and fifty writers collaborating to produce the feature. I’m not sure if we’ll see it on Australian film screens, but The Impact premieres in London on Tuesday 31 May 2022.
