QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection

9 June 2022

QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection, published by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), is not only a catalogue for the exhibition of the same name running until Sunday 21 August 2022 in Melbourne, but also a collection of LGBTQIA+ stories and histories, edited by Ted Gott, Angela Hesson, Myles Russell-Cook, Meg Slater, and Pip Wallis.

More than 60 essays from authors with comprehensive knowledge of the historical and contemporary subjects encompassed by the NGV’s QUEER project are presented along side stunning reproductions of more than 200 works from the NGV collection, either by queer artists or engaging with queer issues. The essays in QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection explore the history of LGBTQ+ activism; the creation of queer spaces and communities; queerness as an artistic strategy; the expression of love, desire and sensuality; queer aesthetics; and the concepts of camp and the fantastic.

2022 Text Prize shortlist for unpublished manuscripts

9 June 2022

Seven middle-grade and young adult writers have been named on the 2022 Text Prize shortlist for unpublished manuscripts.

Bellamy Jones and the Lost Treeheart, by Emily Beck
How to be Normal by, Ange Crawford
One Thing You Can Feel, by Robbie Taylor Hunt
Year of the Dog, by Kate McCabe
Finding Liminas: The Sudden Tree, by Bria McCarthy
The Collector of Gifts, by Jamie Ramjan
Let’s Never Speak of this Again, by Megan Williams

The winner of the 2022 Text Prize, along with the recipient of the Steph Bowe Mentorship for Young Writers, will be named in late June.

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Australian literature, literary awards

Legal bid to name owner of anonymous PRGuy17 Twitter account

7 June 2022

The Australian Federal Court has given social networking service Twitter fourteen days to hand over subscription information for the PRGuy17 account, that may reveal the identity of the anonymous operator. The order is in response to a defamation case being bought against PRGuy17 by conservative media journalist Avi Yemini.

PRGuy17, whose avatar displays Simpsons character Troy McClure, built a following during the pandemic, often in vociferous defence of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and critical of various conservative political leaders and mainstream news media. Yemini filed proceedings in the Federal Court in February promising to unmask the identity of the Twitter account. Yemini, a journalist at far-right media outlet Rebel News, was critical of the Andrews government’s management of the pandemic and clashed with the account on Twitter.

Subscription data includes any name and email address details used to create the PRGuy17 account, along with internet protocol (IP) addresses used by the account’s operator. It remains to be seen how useful any of this data may be in uncovering the identity of the person operating the page.

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politics, social media, Twitter

2022 Australian Book Design Awards winners

7 June 2022

The winners in the 2022 Australian Book Design Awards (ABDA), which recognise outstanding book cover design, were announced on Friday 3 June 2022.

In Moonland (published by Scribe Publications, August 2021), by Melbourne based Australian author Miles Allinson won the Best Designed Literary Fiction Cover, while Catch Us the Foxes (published by Simon & Schuster, July 2021), by Sydney based Nicola West, took out the award for Best Designed Commercial Fiction Cover.

Cover designs in twenty categories were nominated, and all winners can be seen on the ABDA Instagram page.

Kimi, a Rear Window inspired thriller by Steven Soderbergh

7 June 2022

Still from Kimi, courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Angela (Zoe Kravitz) is a housebound voice stream interpreter who spends her days correcting errors a virtual assistant named Kimi makes. Typically Angela is required to familiarise Kimi with slang terms and clarify user instructions the virtual assistant doesn’t understand.

But when Angela hears what sounds like a violent assault on a recording that’s been flagged for review, she urges her managers to inform the authorities. But the would-be crime is an inconvenience CEO Bradley Hasling (Derek DelGaudio) has no time for.

The company is about to float on the sharemarket, and Hasling is more focussed on the payout due to him. He wants Angela to drop the matter, insisting the recording is some sort of glitch. When Angela refuses to relent, she finds herself pursued by people who will stop at nothing to protect their interests.

Kimi, trailer, directed by American filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, is choke full of references to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic Rear Window. Soderbergh still delivers us the neighbours peering into each other’s windows, but adds COVID, face masks, and smartphones to the mix. The storyline may be on the straightforward side, but the brisk runtime means there’s seldom a dull moment.

Remaining mindful of Australian Indigenous reconciliation

7 June 2022

National Reconciliation Week, a celebration of Australian Indigenous history and culture, concluded last Friday, 3 June 2022. But there are still ways we can remain mindful of reconciliation, and the history and culture of Indigenous Australians, daily, and immersing ourselves in First Nations art, film, and literature, are some of the ways we can achieve this.

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Australia, Indigenous culture

A trailer for Juniper, a film by Matthew J. Saville

7 June 2022

Juniper, a film by Matthew J. Saville, film still

Still from Juniper, courtesy of Transmission Films.

Juniper, trailer, is the debut feature of South African born New Zealand filmmaker Matthew J. Saville. Set in rural New Zealand, the story brings together two headstrong characters, Ruth (Charlotte Rampling), an alcoholic, and Sam (George Ferrier), her troubled grandson, who find themselves forced into each other’s company.

Sam (17) has been on a self-destructive spiral that could lead to his death. He returns home from boarding school to find his wheelchair-bound English grandmother, Ruth has moved in. Ruth is an ex-war photographer with a lust for life and a love of the bottle. Sam soon finds himself profoundly confronted by her alcoholic wit and chutzpah. Their first meeting is awkward; their second violent. Things get worse when Sam finds himself stranded alone with her and her nurse Sarah for the school holidays. Both strong-willed characters, a battle of supremacy ensues, enabling Sam to embrace life again and for Ruth to face her mortality.

PRIDE on SCREEN, LGBTIQ+ films, Cinema Nova, Melbourne, June 2022

6 June 2022

PRIDE on SCREEN is a celebration of Pride Month, taking place at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova, from Friday 10 June 2022, until Wednesday 15 June.

Cinema Nova celebrates Pride Month with a curated selection of premiere screenings, new releases and big-screen classics exploring stories from across the LGBTIQ+ experience, screening from Friday June 10.

After Blue, trailer, a science-fiction feature made by French director Bertrand Mandico in 2021, is one of the films showing at the festival. Set on a planet where only women can survive, After Blue tells the story of a hairdresser and her daughter, as they hunt for a notorious killer, named — curiously — Kate Bush.

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Bertrand Mandico, events, film, trailer

Winnie Dunn, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, speak with Roanna Gonsalves

6 June 2022

Roanna Gonsalves, creative writing lecturer and author, speaks to Winnie Dunn and Dr Michael Mohammed Ahmad, at Waverley Library, in Bondi Junction, Sydney, on Saturday 11 June, from 11AM until 12PM.

Dunn is the general manager of the Sweatshop Literacy Movement, while Ahmad’s third novel The Other Half of You, was published last year. The speaking event is part of an initiative by Waverley municipal council to curb racism in the community.

Zelensky, a book by Andrew L Urban, Chris McLeod

6 June 2022

Zelensky, by Andrew L. Urban, Chris McLeod, book cover

Zelensky (published by Wilkinson Publishing, April 2022), is a portrait of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, written by Australian author and former film critic Andrew L. Urban, and journalist and author Chris McLeod, which examines Zelensky’s resilience in the face of the Russian invasion of his country.

No one has been more surprised by Zelensky’s power to inspire and mobilise his countrymen and the world than Vladimir Putin, who expected Russia’s conquest of its beleaguered neighbour to be the work of an afternoon. Outfoxed and isolated, Putin is not the first person to have underestimated the former comedian with a spine of steel.

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