United States government is considering a full TikTok ban
2 March 2023
Lawmakers in the United States are considering legislation to ban the use of video sharing app TikTok, citing national security concerns:
On Tuesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee was expected to move forward with a bill that would give President Joe Biden the authority to ban TikTok from all US devices. That’s an estimated 130 million US users. A ban would require passage by the full House and the Senate before the President can sign it into law.
While there are concerns ByteDance, the company who owns TikTok, is sharing user data with the Chinese government, a blanket ban on the app would be a drastic move. I don’t know what the numbers are, but there must be fair few Americans — TikTok influencers for instance — whose livelihoods could be threatened by outlawing TikTok.
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security, social media, tiktok
The Wakes, debut fiction by Australian author Dianne Yarwood
1 March 2023
I’m yet to read The Wakes, published by Hachette Australia, March 2023, by Sydney based Australian author Dianne Yarwood, but I’m already convinced it could be adapted to film. I’ve even thought of a name: Four Funerals and a Divorce. I’m not actually sure a divorce even occurs in Yarwood’s fiction debut, there may in fact be two, given the blurb to The Wakes tells us two failing marriages (and four funerals) feature in the story. But back to my big screen adaptation idea.
Since my fanciful film title, Four Funerals and a Divorce, obviously riffs on the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral, directed by Mike Newell, and starring Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant, the two leads could be invited to participate. The rest of the would-be cast though would of course be Australian. But now back to The Wakes.
Sydneysider Clare has recently separated from her husband. She is happy to accept a call for help from Louisa, her neighbour. Louisa runs a catering business that specialises in wakes, the gatherings that take place after funerals. Louisa is overwhelmed with work. Assisting Louisa is a smart move on Clare’s part for several reasons. Wake catering has to be a growth industry. Further, it is somewhat immune to the threats posed to other forms of employment by the likes of AI Chatbots.
But job security, whether Clare is looking for it or not, is moot point. Wake catering might be about to change her life. For it is at one post funeral gathering that Clare makes the acquaintance of Chris. He is a doctor working in the emergency room of a hospital. Chris sees too much death in his job to want to think about going to funerals, but he decides one day to make an exception.
The Wakes is isn’t all wake catering though. In the mix is love both lost and found, unsuccessful rounds of IVF, and the constant comfort that food can bring to the lives of people whose depleted spirits need a little lift.
Prior to penning her first novel, Yarwood worked in accounting and corporate advisory, both in Australia and Europe. She also has an interest in cooking and catering, which seems to have partly inspired her novel. But there’s more. Her life was once saved by an emergency room doctor, an experience that lead Yarwood to focus on her long held writing ambitions. Along with possibly being the genius behind the character of Chris.
Could we be seeing another instance of art imitating life, as we do in a lot of fiction, among the pages of The Wakes?
UPDATE: after waxing lyrical about the possibility of a film adaptation, a reader messaged to let me know a TV series, based on The Wakes, is in the works. A screen adaptation deal was reached last September, with production company Fifth Season.
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Australian literature, Dianne Yarwood, fiction, novels
The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2023 shortlists
1 March 2023
The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2023 shortlists were announced today, with Australian written works nominated across more than twelve prize categories.
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au, Grimmish by Michael Winkler, The Upwelling by Lystra Rose, Another Day in the Colony by Chelsea Watego, The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt, and We Come With This Place by Debra Dank, are among contenders.
The winners will be named on the evening of Monday 22 May 2023, in Sydney.
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Australian literature, Jessica Au, literary awards, Michael Winkler
One Illumined Thread, debut fiction by Sally Colin-James
28 February 2023
The stories of three women, living millennia apart, form a single, though not immediately obvious, thread that runs through One Illumined Thread, published by HarperCollins, March 2023, the debut novel of Australian author Sally Colin-James.
A young woman living two thousand years ago in Judea, an ancient kingdom in parts of what are today Palestine and Israel, is cast out of her home after failing to become pregnant. She longs to have a child, and as a way of keeping the hope of motherhood in her sights, takes the unusual step of learning the craft of glassblowing.
Fifteen hundred years later, in the Italian city of Florence, a woman is left without any money after being betrayed by her husband. The Renaissance is at its height, but with a son to look after also, she battles to make ends meet. The third thread of the story plays out in latter day Australia. Here a woman, devastated by a loss, working as a textile conservator, faces danger that puts her life at risk.
While the challenges confronting each woman seem insurmountable, the three share a link, even though they are separated by vast periods of time and distance.
The premise of One Illumined Thread brought to mind The Bass Rock, written in 2020 by Anglo-Australian author Evie Wyld. Wyld’s novel, winner of the 2021 Stella Prize, recounts the story of three woman who lived in the North Berwick area of Scotland at various times. Two women, Ruth and Viv, have a family connection, step grandmother and granddaughter, while the third, Sarah, lived several centuries earlier.
But where the ties between the three main characters in The Bass Rock are more apparent, the links in One Illumined Thread are far less so. Here is a story shrouded in mystery.
Before she took up writing, Colin-James worked in events management, and communications, both in Australia, and internationally. In 2020 she won the inaugural Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA) Colleen McCullough Writing Residency in the aspiring writer category. The residency, named in memory of late Australian author Colleen McCullough, awards recipients a week on Norfolk Island, where McCullough spent the latter part of her life.
Colin-James has also won the Varuna PIP Fellowship Award, and the Byron Bay Writers Festival Mentorship Award in 2020. In addition, she was also shortlisted in the First Pages Prize for writers who do not have agents, in 2021.
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Melissa Clark-Reynolds and Beth Barany discuss science fiction
27 February 2023
Melissa Clark-Reynolds and Beth Barany talk about writing science fiction on the Writer’s Fun Zone podcast. One point that emerges is science fiction’s relevance to contemporary matters on planet Earth. This at a time when some Australian publishers have no interest in looking at science fiction and fantasy manuscripts, possibly because they deem it irrelevant.
I’ve seen so many different stories use science fiction to explore where we are today. And, there’s something always very surprising about them. I just really enjoy them.
A great point. A lot of sci-fi pertains to the here and now. It’s not all a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away. Literary agents and publishers take note.
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Why do people only listen to old music as they get older?
27 February 2023
There’s all sorts of reasons, but a lack of time to seek out new compositions, and not simply a love of “old music”, is one:
One explanation for the age-based reduction in music consumption simply posits that responsibility-laden adults may have less discretionary time to explore their musical interests than younger people.
This is where good old radio can help. Switch to station that plays newer, less familiar, music, while you’re working or driving. Since radio playlists are generally repetitive, new favourites will gradually worm their way into your ear.
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How to Be Remembered, debut fiction by Michael Thompson
26 February 2023
Tommy is desperate to create a legacy for himself. But he can’t wait until he reaches old age. Tommy needs people to remember who he is sooner than that. Before his birthday, to be precise. For, come the conclusion of each lap of his around the Sun, all memory of his existence is erased from the minds of everyone in the world. No one at all remembers him.
This includes his parents, his friends, and even the girl he has a crush on. As far they’re concerned, he was never there. Every trace of his life is obliterated. Memories. Photos. Shared experiences. Every last thing, including, presumably, a criminal record if he has one. Each and every detail gone, as if it were never there. And you thought you were having a bad day.
But not everything dissolves when the clock ticks over into his birthday. Anything Tommy is in direct contact with, such as his clothes, stays with him. The phenomenon is some sort of enigmatic cosmic occurrence that Tommy has dubbed “the Reset”, and it began the day he turned one.
On his first birthday, his parents woke to find an unknown baby in the house. They had no recollection whatsoever of having a son. Clueless as to who the infant was, they called the police, who sent Tommy to a foster home. And so it went. Every year all traces of Tommy are wiped from the world’s slate, leaving him to spend the following twelve months rebuilding his life.
How to Be Remembered (published by Allen & Unwin, February 2023), by Sydney based Australian journalist and podcast producer Michael Thompson, straight away had me thinking of Harold Ramis’ 1993 film Groundhog Day. Like Ramis’ hapless protagonist Phil, portrayed by American actor Bill Murray, Tommy is aware of his predicament, albeit one that plays out annually instead of daily.
He remembers everything from before his birthday. To him, his life is continuous. He still knows those around him, although they don’t have the faintest idea who he is. Accordingly, Tommy has devised strategies to re-establish himself in the lives of those he was with before the Reset.
But Thompson’s debut work of fiction is not only reminiscent of the likes of Groundhog Day. Parallels have also been drawn with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and even Forrest Gump. The Reset, meanwhile, is another matter. It is a sadistic abnormality that perhaps a serial speedster — seeking only to have an unblemished driving record restored every year — might appreciate.
But it is for that reason I see How to Be Remembered being a story that will excite readers. So much so, that I wouldn’t be surprised to see a screen adaptation in the not too distant future.
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Has the world reached peak podcast?
25 February 2023
Phil Siarri, writing at The PhilaVerse, notes the number of new podcasts has declined by eighty-percent globally, compared to 2020-2022, based on data published by Listen Notes.
219,178 new podcasts were created in 2022 as opposed to 337,063 in 2019.
But James Cridland, writing at Podnews, says that while the number of new podcast shows has declined, the number of new episodes has increased:
The increasing number of episodes suggests that podcasters aren’t, as the narrative suggests, “giving up”. Committed podcasters are continuing to release new episodes, at an ever-increasing rate. Far from podcasting being in severe decline, the industry seems healthy and growing.
I can’t go anywhere on the web without tripping over a podcast show, so suggesting podcasting is in decline seems like a big call, even though some data might indicate this is the case. It seems reasonable the number of new podcast shows would fall once COVID-19 lockdowns ended, and people were no longer looking for so many ways to occupy themselves while at home.
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New Australian books and TBR ideas, 24 February 2023
24 February 2023
Here’s a selection of Australian written books, either recently published, or in the pipeline, that I’ve spotted in the last week, for the consideration of your TBR list.
- Viking Women by Lisa Hannett, tells the stories of the wives and mothers, girls and slaves, widows and witches, who sailed, settled, suffered, survived, and thrived, in the patriarchal society of the Vikings.
- Desi Girl: On feminism, race, faith and belonging by Sarah Malik, is a collection of short stories exploring the complexities of living between different worlds as a young Pakistani-Australian woman growing up in the west of Sydney.
- Locked Ward by Anne Buist. A psychiatrist discreetly seeking treatment for a sleeping disorder at a private psych facility becomes embroiled in a murder investigation. But not because she was present at the time, but because she knows everyone involved in the case.
- The Albatross by Nina Wan. Primrose is a woman at a personal and professional crossroads in her life, who suddenly decides to take up golf. Despite a shaky start to her game, golfing proves to be a panacea for many of her problems.
- The Heart Is A Star by Megan Rogers. Layla is a middle-aged woman dealing with a failing marriage, a demanding job, her children, an overly dependant lover, and exhaustion. Things only get worse when Layla’s overwrought mother calls to say there’s something pressing about her father she needs to know.
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Anne Buist, Australian literature, books, Lisa Hannett, Megan Rogers, Nina Wan, Sarah Malik
If you wrote a book with ChatGPT, you did not write a book
24 February 2023
If ChatGPT wrote a book for you, can you really claim to have written said book yourself, asks American author Emily Temple, writing at Literary Hub:
Would-be author Brett Schickler told Reuters that after he learned about ChatGPT — which can instantly generate cogent blocks of text from any prompt — he “figured an opportunity had landed in his lap.” “The idea of writing a book finally seemed possible,” he explained. “I thought ‘I can do this.”’ In “a matter of hours,” he had prompted the AI software — using inputs like “write a story about a dad teaching his son about financial literacy” — to create a 30-page children’s e-book about a squirrel who learns to save his money. Well, hate to break it to you, buddy, but… you still haven’t written a book.
Writers are using the AI chatbot to assist with research (be sure to verify what ChatGPT tells you though) and maybe some passages of text. But if you’re going to spend your days constantly prompting ChatGPT for exactly what you want, why not do it yourself?
And while AI technologies might “write” a book for you in a matter of days, can it publish the work just as quickly? Not at the moment it can’t. You’ll still be waiting months, or more, to see your work on the shelves in bookshops.
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