We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, by Jane Schoenbrun
27 April 2022
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, trailer, by American filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun, promises to take viewers down a couple of bottomless rabbit-holes…
Late on a cold night somewhere in the U.S., teenage Casey sits alone in her attic bedroom, scrolling the internet under the glow-in-the-dark stars and black-light posters that blanket the ceiling. She has finally decided to take the World’s Fair Challenge, an online role-playing horror game, and embrace the uncertainty it promises. After the initiation, she documents the changes that may or may not be happening to her, adding her experiences to the shuffle of online clips available for the world to see. As she begins to lose herself between dream and reality, a mysterious figure reaches out, claiming to see something special in her uploads.
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film, Jane Schoenbrun, trailer
the html review, for literature made to exist on the web
27 April 2022
the html review is home to literature made to exist on the web, and is edited by New York City based author and technologist, Maxwell Neely-Cohen.
Every year we will publish works of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, graphic storytelling, and experiments that rely on the web as medium. the html review was started out of a yearning for more outlets comfortable with pieces built for our screens, writing that leverages our computational networked tools, both new and old, for the art of language, narrative, and exploration.
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FutureNever, new music from Daniel Johns
26 April 2022
Reclaim Your Heart is a track on FutureNever, the new solo album from Daniel Johns, former guitarist and songwriter of defunct Australian indie rock act Silverchair.
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Australian music, Daniel Johns, music
What becomes of rock stars when they’re no longer stars?
26 April 2022
What’s the worst thing that could happen to a rock star? It might be waking up one day and discovering they’re no longer as famous as they once were. For some, the awakening can be rude, as was the case for American musician Suzanne Vega.
Accustomed to her record company supplying a limousine to convey her between airport and home, Vega was forced to hail a taxi on returning from an ill-fated tour in 1990, after realising she no longer qualified for the perk.
Similar fates, it seems, have befallen other who were once household names, such as Kevin Rowland, of Dexys Midnight Runners, Terence Trent D’Arby, now known as Sananda Maitreya, and Bill Drummond of The KLF.
What’s interesting though, encouraging even, is most of these musicians, and likely many others who fell out of the limelight decades ago, are still recording and performing. Carrying on, sans the hype.
If being a musician is in someone’s DNA, what need is there for mass adulation? It’s all about the music, isn’t it?
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The 2022 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers
26 April 2022
Entries are open until Friday 8 July for the 2022 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers. Writers, who are unpublished, need only submit the first three chapters of their manuscript at this stage, though they must intend to complete it.
This is the eighth year of the prestigious Richell Prize and once again entries are open to unpublished writers of adult fiction and adult narrative non-fiction. Writers do not need to have a full manuscript at the time of submission, though they must intend to complete one. The Prize will be judged on the first three chapters of the submitted work, along with a synopsis outlining the direction of the proposed work and detail about how the author’s writing career would benefit from winning the Prize.
The Richell Prize was established in 2015 in memory of Matt Richell, the former CEO of the Australian operation of Hachette Publishing, who died in 2014. The longlist for the prize will be published on Monday 5 September 2022.
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Australian literature, awards, Richell Prize
The benefits of having a dual identity are real
22 April 2022
Thinking of yourself as another person, in the same sort of way Bruce Wayne thinks of himself as the Batman, may be surprisingly empowering. You don’t need to imagine you’re a superhero though, even assigning yourself a pseudonym may be sufficient.
Although the embodiment of a fictional persona may seem like a gimmick for pop stars, new research suggests there may be some real psychological benefits to the strategy. Adopting an alter ego is an extreme form of ‘self-distancing’, which involves taking a step back from our immediate feelings to allow us to view a situation more dispassionately.
“Self-distancing gives us a little bit of extra space to think rationally about the situation,” says Rachel White, assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College in New York State. It allows us to rein in undesirable feelings like anxiety, increases our perseverance on challenging tasks, and boosts our self-control.
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Authors are the most likely people to feature on banknotes
22 April 2022
It seems ironic that while they may not earn a great deal of money, authors are the most likely people to feature on banknotes, ahead of even political leaders.
Some notable figures in this category include Colombia’s first Nobel Prize of Literature winner Gabriel García Márquez, the pioneer of Japanese modern literature Ichiyo Higuchi and Turkish writer Fatma Aliye Topuz, who is known as the first female author in the Islamic world. Writers can give voice to a place, time, and culture in a way that can resonate and instill a sense of shared identity among citizens, perhaps making them such a popular choice to feature on banknotes.
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How annoying are some websites today?
21 April 2022
We all know the feeling. You’re literally five seconds into reading article on a website, and a popup screen is asking if you’d like to subscribe to their newsletter. NO THANKS. I just want to read the article and never come back again.
It’s infuriating. That’s why this website is so… boring, people come here looking for information and I serve it up, no fuss, no drama, no damn popups.
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Deutsche Bank Fellowship for First Nations Film Creatives
21 April 2022
Submissions for the 2022 Deutsche Bank Fellowship for First Nations Film Creatives are open until Friday 29 April 2022. The fellowship is open to Australian based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander film creatives in any discipline within the local film and television industry.
Now in its second year, the Deutsche Bank Fellowship is a grant for Australian First Nations film creatives launched by Sydney Film Festival and Deutsche Bank in 2021. The winning Fellow in 2022 will be awarded a $20,000 grant to further develop their skills through international placement or other professional development.
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2022 Newcastle Short Story Award
21 April 2022
Last call for entries for the 2022 Newcastle Short Story Award, which close this Monday, 25 April. Works of no more than two thousand words by Australian citizens or permanent residents aged eighteen or over, are eligible for inclusion.
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