Memorable reading suggestions for March 2022
3 March 2022
Reading suggestions from Jason Steger, books editor at The Sydney Morning Herald, this time for the month of March. I have my eye on Loveland, by Melbourne based Australian writer Robert Lukins.
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Naomi Parry Duncan wins Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship 2022
2 March 2022
Blue Mountains based Australian historian and writer Naomi Parry Duncan has been named winner of the 2022 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship.
The fellowship, which is awarded to Australian biography writers, commemorates late British born Australian writer and biographer Hazel Rowley, who died in 2011.
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Australian writing, biographies, Hazel Rowley, literature, Naomi Parry Duncan
Understanding Ukraine and Russia, some suggested reading
2 March 2022
For anyone interested in reading more about the present situation in Ukraine, Serhii Plokhii, Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University, recommends five books that explore the history, and relationship, between Ukraine and Russia.
It is a situation that probably could be recognized anywhere in the world — because what we see is the process of disintegration of one of the last world empires. The Russian Empire started to fall apart when the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and other empires were falling apart. The Bolsheviks held it together, but it still fell apart in 1991, almost overnight. Everyone was surprised. It was a miracle that there was no major war or bloodshed. Now we realize that the war was just postponed.
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Avoid the loss of your Goodreads data, back up your account regularly
2 March 2022
Alarming news for members of book cataloguing website Goodreads, of which I am one. Be sure to regularly backup your account data, as it may be irretrievably lost in the event of a website glitch, as was the case recently for Nelson Minar.
Goodreads lost my entire account last week. Nine years as a user, some 600 books and 250 carefully written reviews all deleted and unrecoverable. Their support has not been helpful. In 35 years of being online I’ve never encountered a company with such callous disregard for their users’ data.
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Stella Prize longlist 2022, a good year for poetry
1 March 2022
Unlike the Miles Franklin Literary Award, which honours only works of fiction by Australian writers, the Stella Prize recognises writing across all genres, be it fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, graphic novels, biographies, historical writing, short story collections, novellas, and poetry.
In addition to the fiction and non-fiction works named on the Stella Prize longlist for 2022, Stone Fruit by Montreal, Canada based Australian cartoonist Lee Lai becomes the first graphic novel to be included on the longlist.
But it is the poets who have a made a mark this year, claiming four of the twelve slots on the longlist. Take Care by Eunice Andrada, Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen (cover featured above), Homecoming by Elfie Shiosaki, and The Open by Lucy Van, are all in contention for the prize.
If one of the poetry titles wins, or Lai’s graphic novel, it will be a first for the Stella. A shortlist consisting of six titles will be unveiled on 31 March 2022.
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Australian literature, graphic novels, literary awards, poetry, Stella Prize
Australian actors overlooked at Screen Actors Guild Awards 2022
1 March 2022
Australian actors Cate Blanchett, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Sarah Snook, and Nicole Kidman, missed out being recognised in this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, after being nominated in a number of SAG categories. Here’s hoping those in line for an Oscar fare better on 28 March.
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The 2022 Stella Prize longlist
28 February 2022
The 2022 Stella Prize longlist was announced today, and includes the following twelve books:
- Another Day in the Colony by Chelsea Watego
- The Open by Lucy Van
- Homecoming by Elfie Shiosaki
- Permafrost by SJ Norman
- Stone Fruit by Lee Lai
- Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss
- Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
- No Document by Anwen Crawford
- She Is Haunted by Paige Clark
- Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
- Take Care by Eunice Andrada
- Coming of Age in the War on Terror by Randa Abdel-Fattah
The Stella Prize, which was established in 2013, is a literary award celebrating the writing of Australian women. The shortlist will be announced on 31 March 2022.
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Australian literature, literary awards, Stella Prize
Tim Winton critical of fossil fuel industry arts sponsorship
28 February 2022
Perth based Australian writer Tim Winton, and four times Miles Franklin Award winner, has spoken out against the over reliance the local arts community has on sponsorship from the fossil fuel industry, during a speech at Perth festival’s Writers Weekend.
“I do want us to acknowledge how things still work here … how captive [the arts and cultural sectors] are,” he told the Writers Weekend audience. “I suspect that to some of the folks who were involved in decisions around that production, all of them good people I’m sure, the dissonance just wasn’t audible. And that just shows you how normal it is, how safe the fossil giants still feel here in the wild west.”
Winton singled out a performance of Become Ocean, an orchestral composition by John Luther Adams, scheduled for Saturday 5 March at the Festival, which has already attracted the ire of a local activist arts group on account of sponsorship arrangements for the performance.
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Australian literature, Tim Winton
Again, Rachel, Marian Keyes
28 February 2022
Readers of Irish author Marian Keyes‘ Walsh Family Series of novels first made the acquaintance of Rachel Walsh in 1997, in Rachel’s Holiday. Rachel was twenty-seven, and not in a good place. She’d just broken up with her boyfriend, Luke, and had been placed in rehabilitation by her family on account of her substance abuse.
Fast forward to 2021, and Rachel’s world is a better place. In fact, she has come full circle. She now works as a councillor at the facility she was admitted to twenty-five years earlier. Further, she’s in a happy relationship, and is getting along nicely with her mother and siblings. All up, everything seems to be going exceedingly well for Rachel. But her reverie is shattered by an out of the blue call from an old flame, in Again, Rachel (published by Penguin Books Australia, February 2022).
Just when she thought she had everything sorted out, and was settled, Rachel finds her life turned on its head. What is she to do? Follow her heart, and her ex, and venture back into a time and place she thought she’d left behind? Or remain in the predictable now? How fragile, it seems, is the life we believed to be firmly established…
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fiction, Marian Keyes, TBR list, writing
Sissy, a film by Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes
26 February 2022
Cecilia (Aisha Dee) runs into old school mate Emma (Hannah Barlow) after ten years, and is invited to her hen’s weekend. But the reunion quickly takes a turn for the worse, as old tensions resurface, in Sissy, trailer, directed by Australian actors and filmmakers Hannah Barlow, and Kane Senes.
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