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The 2022 World Coffee Championships were held in Melbourne, Australia, during the last week of September, and local coffee-brewer Anthony Douglas was named Barista of the Year.

Here’s some video footage of Douglas in action. But whoever thought that coffee making could be a spectator event?

The ground beneath our feet is constantly shifting. In around three-hundred million years, all the landmasses we’re familiar with today will have merged to form a supercontinent some are already calling Amasia. So fas as geologists can tell, there have possibly been six such supercontinent formations in the past.

The three most recent supercontinents were Pangea, Gondwana, and Pannotia. Geologists think there were other supercontinents before these three, which are called Nuna (or Columbia), Rodinia, and Ur.

The formation of Amasia is going to involve a lot of tectonic activity between now and then. Too bad no one here today will be around it see it.

Not even books are immune to the ravages of surging inflation, and increasing prices in the shops is only one problem afflicting the publishing industry. As production costs rise, printers are being forced to look for ways to reduce overheads. These include using cheaper paper stock, and smaller fonts along with less page margins, so books can be produced using less resources.

Blow on its pages and they might lift and fall differently: cheaper, lighter paper is being used in some books. Peer closely at its print and you might notice that the letters jostle more closely together: some cost-conscious publishers are starting to shrink the white space between characters. The text might run closer to the edges of pages, too: the margins of publishing are shrinking, in every sense.

Sunday 9 October 2022 marks ten years since then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered a scathing speech berating blatant instances of misogyny and sexism from the then opposition party, and its leader Tony Abbott. The address — which became known as the misogyny speech — is among the most significant ever made by an Australian Prime Minister.

Not Now, Not Ever, Ten years on from the misogyny speech, a book which will be published on Wednesday 5 October 2022, and edited by Gillard, examines what has changed in Australia since her speech, and what still needs to come.

On 9 October 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard stood up and proceeded to make all present in Parliament House that day pay attention — and left many of them squirming in their seats. The incisive ‘misogyny speech’, as her words came to be known, continues to energise and motivate women who need to stare down sexism and misogyny in their own lives.

With contributions from Mary Beard, Jess Hill, Jennifer Palmieri, Katharine Murphy and members of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, Julia Gillard explores the history and culture of misogyny, tools in the patriarchy’s toolbox, intersectionality, and gender and misogyny in the media and politics.

Kathy Lette looks at how the speech has gained a new life on TikTok, as well as inspiring other tributes and hand-made products, and we hear recollections from Wayne Swan, Anne Summers, Cate Blanchett, Brittany Higgins and others of where they were and how they first encountered the speech.

Don’t we love freely available collections of digitised artworks or books? Well, here’s another one, seven-thousand historical children’s books, courtesy of the University of Florida’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature.

Most titles in this collection were originally published in the mid to late nineteenth century, so will doubtless differ somewhat from what is seen in contemporary children’s fiction.

The Bling Ring were a gang of American teenagers who broke into the homes of actors and celebrities in Los Angeles in 2009. Having ascertained their victims were out of town — usually by way of media reporting — the group would locate their houses.

Once onsite they’d find a way to enter the property, often by finding a hidden key, or an unlocked door, and go about helping themselves to whatever they wanted, typically designer clothing and prestige fashion accessories.

Targets included Kirsten Dunst, and Paris Hilton, whose house the teenagers repeatedly raided. Their escapades were the subject of Sofia Coppola’s 2013 film of the same name, starring Katie Chang, Emma Watson, and Israel Broussard. The movie includes cameos by Kirsten Dunst, Hilton, who is a friend of Coppola.

Nine years later, the Bling Ring’s activities are the subject of a new Netflix series, The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist (trailer). Instead of actors though, this time members of the gang feature, including Nick Prugo, Rachel Lee, and Courtney Ames, as they tell their side of the story.

A collection of useful resources for people juggling day jobs or other work with creative endeavours, put together by Canadian art magazine booooooom.

A couple of standouts include balancing full-time work with your creative side hustle, and advice on turning down ridiculous rates for your work, by Jano le Roux.

Limberlost (published by Text Publishing, October 2022), is the new novel from Tasmania based Australian author Robbie Arnott, and follows his 2020 book The Rain Heron, which was shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin literary award.

As with The Rain Heron, conflict features in Limberlost, though this time the story is told from the perspective of a boy whose older brothers are away, fighting during the Second World War:

In the heat of a long summer Ned hunts rabbits in a river valley, hoping the pelts will earn him enough money to buy a small boat. His two brothers are away at war, their whereabouts unknown. His father and older sister struggle to hold things together on the family orchard, Limberlost.

Desperate to ignore it all — to avoid the future rushing towards him — Ned dreams of open water. As his story unfolds over the following decades, we see how Ned’s choices that summer come to shape the course of his life, the fate of his family and the future of the valley, with its seasons of death and rebirth.

Early reviews for Limberlost look promising. Kimberley Starr, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, praises Arnott’s magical realism, and lyrical magic, which made The Rain Heron a treat to read:

Any readers unresponsive to the magical realism of Arnott’s previous novels should find something to appreciate here, and people who already value his writing will have the opportunity to see him working his lyrical magic in a more familiar but equally beguiling world.

While I usually feature long and shortlists from some of the literary awards, why not change things up a bit? Recently the World’s 50 Best Bars 2022 longlist was announced. Not that you’ll catch me in a bar too often, but it’s worth noting two Australian bars made the cut.

One is Caretaker’s Cottage in Melbourne, as is Re Bar, located in the Sydney suburb of Eveleigh, which I find myself in, or near, on occasion. I’ll have to look out for Re Bar next time I’m nearby.

It also turns out Re owner Matt Whiley is passionate about tackling the scourge of food waste. If you think food waste is a trivial matter, watch the trailer for Never Wasted, an in production documentary on the efforts being made by Whiley, and others, to reduce food waste.

American actor Tom Hanks has recently finished writing his debut novel The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece. Unsurprisingly the story is film related. And why not, writing about topics you’re familiar with is a great way to launch your literary career, is it not?

The story centers around the opening of a movie that is a “colossal, star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film” and involves a timeline from the 1940s to the present day. According to the publisher, “Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.”

Seems to me like the novel blends a bit of Saving Private Ryan (for the soldier) with some Cloud Atlas (for the time travel), both being movies Hanks starred in.

Undoubtedly his debut novel will do well. Even if it turns out not to be all that good. After all, with the profile Hanks enjoys, what could possibly go wrong, at least in terms of sales? And think about all those A-List reviews the title will garner, giving sales another nudge. This is fanfare other, likely unknown, aspiring authors, would give their right arms to bask in.

But when it comes to profile, either you have it, or you don’t. A stack of debutant authors have had nothing like the prominence Hanks has, but have gone on to be successful writers. But unknown authors looking for some profile, be it by hook or crook, could ironically take a leaf from Hank’s role as Dermot Hoggins, in the aforementioned Cloud Atlas.

Here Hanks portrays the resentful writer of a book called Knuckle Sandwich, which was the subject of a poor review, written by a critic named Felix Finch. So bitter is Hoggins (beware spoilers follow) he throws Finch over the side of a tall building, at a literary event. Finch is killed instantly when he hits the ground.

Sales of Knuckle Sandwich subsequently surge, but by this stage Hoggins is behind bars. In another cruel twist of fate, Hoggins had signed over all royalties from the novel to his publisher, so in the end doesn’t see a penny. Perhaps he hoped to profit from the sales of a follow up title he wrote while incarcerated.

For the rest of us though, I suggest slow and steady, with no one getting hurt, wins the race when it comes to making it as an unknown author.