Time is a Mother, By Ocean Vuong
17 May 2022
Time is a Mother (published by Penguin Random House, 5 April 2022), is a collection of poetry written by Northampton, Massachusetts based Vietnamese writer Ocean Vuong, following the death of his mother in 2019.
In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, Vuong’s poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break.
Isabella Cho writing for The Harvard Crimson, says Vuong channels fear to bring forth this bold new collection of work:
The finale of Vuong’s sprawling poetic vision is at once dangerous and peaceful, elegiac and triumphant. Vuong’s text pulses with an attentiveness to fear. It is through this emotion that he renders such luminous meditations on his life, and of the people who have come to change it. Vuong fears, which is to say, he refuses to not love.
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2022 Emerging Writers’ Festival
17 May 2022
The 2022 Emerging Writers’ Festival takes place in Melbourne from Wednesday 15 June through to Saturday 25 June 2022. The full program for the festival can be seen here. The festival also hosts the National Writers’ Conference, a one day event being held online on Saturday 18 June 2022:
As the centrepiece event of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the National Writers’ Conference is all about informing and inspiring writers of all genres and styles. Hear the best industry advice from our distinguished Ambassadors and dive into conversations about how to start a publication, the role of literary criticism, the art of the interview and more.
It’s not all about listening to others though, aspiring writers will also have the opportunity to spruik their work during the conference:
Plus, book a Pitch It! Session for a unique opportunity to pitch your manuscript to a publisher or editor. You have just 5 minutes so keep it brief and don’t forget to leave room for questions! These publishers, editors and literary agents are here to support emerging writers, so give it a go.
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Australian literature, events, festivals
Bono and Edge of U2 perform in Kyiv Ukraine
17 May 2022
Excerpts of a surprise performance given by Bono and Edge of Irish rock band U2, accompanied by Ukrainian band Antytila, whose members are also assisting in defending their country from the Russian invasion. Bono told those gathered in the Kyiv metro station that is doubling as a bomb shelter, their people fight not just for their freedom, but for all who cherish liberty:
Your presence leads the world in the cause of freedom right now. The people of Ukraine are not just fighting for your own freedom, you are fighting for all of us who love freedom.
Bono’s on point as per usual.
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This All Come Back Now, edited by Mykaela Saunders
16 May 2022
This All Come Back Now, edited by Australian writer and teacher Mykaela Saunders, and published by University of Queensland Press, is the first ever collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speculative fiction.
The first-ever anthology of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speculative fiction — written, curated, edited and designed by blackfellas, for blackfellas and about blackfellas. In these stories, ‘this all come back’: all those things that have been taken from us, that we collectively mourn the loss of, or attempt to recover and revive, as well as those that we thought we’d gotten rid of, that are always returning to haunt and hound us.
Speculative fiction anthologies featuring the work of Indigenous writers, wherever they may be, seem to be a new thing. Walking the Clouds, compiled by American academic and writer Grace L. Dillon, who incidentally coined the term Indigenous Futurisms, was published in 2012.
Said then to be the “first-ever anthology of Indigenous science fiction”, Walking the Clouds includes short titles by Indigenous authors living in New Zealand, Canada, America, Hawaii, along with an excerpt from Australian author Archie Weller’s 1999 novel Land of the Golden Clouds.
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Archie Weller, Australian literature, Indigenous literature, Mykaela Saunders
Keming is omnipresent, now let’s add it to the dictionary
16 May 2022
American photographer, filmmaker, and writer David Friedman has launched a campaign to have keming, a word he devised in 2008, added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
I coined the word “keming” in 2008, defining it as “the result of improper kerning.” It’s a bit of visual wordplay because kerning is the adjustment of space between letters and if you kern the word kerning improperly, the r and n can merge to form an m. “Kerning” becomes “keming.”
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Everything Went Fine, a film by François Ozon
16 May 2022
I don’t know what someone else would say, but if I had to describe the work of French filmmaker François Ozon in two words or less, I’d go for thought provoking. Look at Potiche, In the House, and The New Girlfriend, and tell me you disagree.
End of life plans, living wills, and euthanasia, are matters featuring prominently in Everything Went Fine (Tout s’est bien passé), trailer, the latest movie from Ozon:
When André, 85, has a stroke, Emmanuelle hurries to her father’s bedside. Sick and half-paralysed in his hospital bed, he asks Emmanuelle to help him end his life. But how can you honour such a request when it’s your own father?
Everything Went Fine opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 19 May 2022.
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No aliens: Carl Sagan’s big 2001: A Space Odyssey contribution
16 May 2022
Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey were at loggerheads for years as to how to portray the highly advanced aliens who created the mysterious black monolith seen throughout the film.
Kubrick had been considering depicting the extra-terrestrials as human-like, until American cosmologist and author Carl Sagan suggested not showing them at all. Best idea ever. The approach created so much more intrigue.
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2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C Clarke, Carl Sagan, film, science fiction, Stanley Kubrick
Early voting in Australia 2022 election proving to be popular
14 May 2022
Australians go the polls to elect a new federal government on Saturday 21 May 2022. Or is that yesterday, today, and tomorrow? Early voting is proving riotously popular again this year, with the Australian Electoral Commission saying almost 1.3 million Australians have already cast their vote.
At the last federal election, about six and a half million people either voted early, or by post. From a pool of just over sixteen million registered voters, that a solid forty percent of the population.
Despite the uptake in pre-poll voting, showing up at the polling booth on election day is meant to be the norm, says Tom Rogers, the Australian Electoral Commissioner:
Early voting options are designed for people who can’t make it their local polling booth. The idea of a dedicated election day is for voters to come together to decide who will run the country for the next three years. “It really is supposed to be an in-person community event where people vote on the day,” Mr Rogers says.
It’s a curious way of looking at the process of electing a government, like it’s the village fete day. We live in a country where voting is mandatory — and everyone, in my opinion, should vote — but expecting sixteen or so million people to converge on polling booths on a single day strikes me as thinking that belongs to another age.
Perhaps one where most people worked during the week, and restricted their weekends to non-work activities. If such a world actually existed.
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Fake accounts temporarily delay Musk’s Twitter takeover
14 May 2022
Elon Musk has temporarily delayed his purchase of social networking service Twitter, citing concerns over the apparent number of fake and spam accounts on the platform. How far are we into the acquisition process, before Musk decides this is an issue? Some speculate he is looking for a way to back out of the deal completely, while others think something else may be at play:
“Generally speaking, people don’t sign merger agreements so they can walk away from them. They sign merger agreements so they can do deals,” said Donna Hitscherich, a professor at Columbia Business School. Zino said Musk could be using the question over fake accounts as an excuse to cut his offer price of $54.20 a share. “He is giving himself more options and giving himself more leverage,” he said. “It appears like he’s paying more than he needs to pay for this deal.”
Perhaps he could run one of his Twitter polls? Do you operate a fake Twitter account? Yes or no? If five percent of respondents answer in the affirmative, all will be sweet…
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Elon Musk, social media, Twitter
Blak Douglas wins Archibald with portrait of Karla Dickens
13 May 2022
Sydney based Australian Indigenous artist Blak Douglas has been named winner of the 2022 Archibald prize for Australian portraiture, for his painting of Wiradjuri installation artist Karla Dickens.
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