No basic income for Australian artists, but some writers can live in reduced rent accommodation

Showing all posts about Australian literature

No basic income for Australian artists, but some writers can live in reduced rent accommodation

14 April 2026

Ireland pays a select group of artists a basic income for a three year period, an initiative the Irish government claims is a world first.

At present, the weekly value of the payment equates to about five-hundred-and-forty Australian dollars. You’d be hard pressed to live on that sort of money in Australia, but it’s better than nothing, considering no such scheme exists locally.

But there is a glimmer of hope. For some local creatives at least. The NSW state government is offering writers the opportunity to rent terrace houses in The Rocks area of Sydney, for two-hundred dollars (Australian) per week.

Spots are limited, and creatives still need a source of income, but the initiative is a (small) step in the right direction. To be eligible, a writer must be considered to be a literature practitioner:

In this instance, ‘Literature Practitioners’ are defined as: writers working in any creative form, including fiction, short stories, screenplay/drama, poetry, children’s books, and narrative non-fiction, and illustrators working in children’s books and graphic novels. The Program is open to NSW Literature Practitioners at any stage of their career.

The Titanic Story of Evelyn, a biography by Lisa Wilkinson

13 April 2026

Evelyn Marsden, a steward and nurse on the Titanic’s doomed 1912 maiden voyage, became known as the only Australian woman to survive the tragic sinking of the ocean liner.

Marsden helped distressed passengers, before eventually being told to get into a lifeboat.

Growing up, Marsden used to row in the Murray River, during family holidays, and would set herself the challenge of rowing against the tide. The skill proved invaluable as she helped row the lifeboat she was aboard, with forty other people, against the pull the sinking Titanic exerted on them.

Marsden was born in Stockyard Creek, South Australia in 1883. After the sinking, she married William James, a doctor who also worked for the White Star Line, owner of the Titanic.

They lived in South Australia for some years before moving to Bondi. Marsden died at age fifty-four in 1938, and is buried in Waverley Cemetery, with her husband, who died a short time afterwards.

Marsden’s life is now the subject of a biography, The Titanic Story of Evelyn, written by Australian TV presenter and journalist, Lisa Wilkinson, which is being published tomorrow, Tuesday 14 April 2026.

The longlist for the 2026 Stella Prize literary award

14 March 2026

Twelve titles have been included on the longlist for this year’s Stella Prize, the Australian literary award recognising the work of women and non-binary writers.

58 Facets: On violence and the law, by Marika Sosnowski
Ankami, by Debra Dank
Apron-Sorrow / Sovereign-Tea, by Natalie Harkin
Cannon, by Lee Lai
Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family, by Micaela Sahhar
Fireweather, by Miranda Darling
I Am Nannertgarrook, by Tasma Walton
KONTRA, by Eunice Andrada
Memorial Days, by Geraldine Brooks
The Rot, by Evelyn Araluen
Wait Here, by Lucy Nelson
Wild Dark Shore, by Charlotte McConaghy

Graphic novelist Lee Lai, whose 2021 title, Stone Fruit, was nominated for the 2022 prize, returns to the Stella this year. Poet Evelyn Araluen, as foreshadowed by yours truly, is also included, with her latest work The Rot.

The Stella shortlist will be announced on Wednesday 8 April 2026.

The Rot, by Evelyn Araluen, wins 2026 Victorian Prize for Literature

2 March 2026

Naarm/Melbourne based Australian poet Evelyn Araluen has won both the Victorian Prize for Literature, and Prize for Indigenous Writing, in this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, for her second collection of poetry, The Rot.

Araluen won the Stella Prize, one of Australia’s major literary awards in 2022, for her debut poetry collection, Dropbear. Her win in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards surely puts The Rot in good stead to be awarded the Stella Prize again this year.

That would be quite the accomplishment. We’ll find out soon if the possibility is on the cards, when the longlist for the 2026 Stella is announced next week, on Wednesday 11 March 2026.

Meanjin magazine given reprieve by Queensland University of Technology

14 February 2026

The Australian literary journal closed late last year after then publisher, Melbourne University Press (MUP), said the long running publication was no longer financially viable.

Earlier this week, the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) said it had taken ownership of the magazine, and quarterly publication will resume.

There will no doubt be rejoicing in Australian literary circles at the news. MUP’s decision to close the magazine, which was launched in 1940, was roundly criticised at the time.

Creative Australia opens applications for a National Poet Laureate

10 February 2026

Applications are open until 17 March 2026, for the role of Australian National Poet Laureate:

The National Poet Laureate is a three‑year appointment that recognises an outstanding Australian poet whose work and cultural contribution have shaped contemporary poetry and its readership. The Laureate serves as a respected public spokesperson and champion for Australian poetry, highlighting its diversity, richness and cultural significance.

Australia has not had a Poet Laureate since, I believe, 1821. Michael Massey Robinson, a convict from England no less, was appointed to the role in 1810.

The history books tell us Robinson was paid with cows for his services. The next Poet Laureate, who will be announced in October this year, will receive financial remuneration.

I thought Evelyn Araluen, who won the 2022 Stella Prize, an Australian literary award, for her debut collection of poetry, Drop Bear, would suit the role.

To be in the running though, applicants must, among other things, have had at least three professionally published books of poetry. To date, Araluen has written two works.

Maybe another time then.

Adelaide Writers’ Week on the brink following author boycotts

13 January 2026

Hannah Story, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Authors including Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko will boycott Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) to protest the cancellation of an event featuring Palestinian Australian author, lawyer and activist Randa Abdel-Fattah. Other authors who have withdrawn from the festival include Peter Greste, Yanis Varoufakis, Evelyn Araluen, Amy McQuire, Clare Wright, Chelsea Watego, Bernadette Brennan and Amy Remeikis.

The boycott is in response to the removal of Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from the 2026 event, scheduled to start at the end of February.

Organisers felt Abdel-Fattah’s presence would “not be culturally sensitive” in the wake of last December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which targeted the Jewish community.

Although organisers say Abdel-Fattah’s writing played no part whatsoever in the atrocity, they were concerned by her long standing anti-Israel sentiments.

Abdel-Fattah has asked organisers to reinstate her, while more writers are threatening to withdraw from the event if this does not happen.

Update: Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) 2026 event has been cancelled. The Adelaide Festival, of which AAW is a part, will however still run.

The Rot, new work by Evelyn Araluen, Australian poet

5 November 2025

The Rot, by Indigenous Australian author Evelyn Araluen (Instagram page), follows up 2021’s Dropbear, which won the 2022 Stellar Prize.

The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world. A liturgy for girlhood in the dying days of late-stage capitalism, these poems expose fraying nerves and tendons of a speaker refusing to avert their gaze from the death of Country, death on Country, and the bloody violence of settler colonies here and afar.

Sydney’s Writers’ Walk to become longer, celebrate other artists

3 November 2025

Located along the shoreline of inner Sydney suburb Circular Quay, Sydney’s Writer’s Walk commemorates well-known authors and playwrights, who are either Australian, or visited the country at some point, with circular plagues set into walkways in the area.

Local writers include Miles Franklin and Peter Carey, while the international cohort is made up of the likes of Rudyard Kipling, and Mark Twain, who were in Australia in 1891, and 1895, respectively.

The Walk was established in 1991, and in 2011 an additional eleven plagues were added, but plans are afoot to add to the Walk in the near future. This makes sense. A bevy of new Australian writers have emerged in the last decade and a half. Numerous notable authors, who were omitted originally, are also in the running for a spot, as are songwriters, who may also be included.

The Sydney’s Writer’s Walk is one of a number of such commemorative walkways in the Sydney area. Others include the Australian Film Walk of Fame, located in Randwick, and the Australian Surfing Walk of Fame, at the beach suburb of Maroubra.

Average at Best, a memoir by Astrid Jorgensen, Pub Choir founder

29 October 2025

Brisbane based Australian musician and singer, and founder of Pub Choir, Astrid Jorgensen (Instagram page), recently published her memoir, Average at Best.

Average, says Jorgensen, is underrated, given how difficult it is to be the best:

By its very nature, ‘best’ is rare and elusive: you’re not going to get much of it in life. And I sure don’t want to miss out on deeply experiencing the fullness of my one precious existence, searching for the sliver of ‘best’.

One of Pub Choirs’ feats was, in August 2023, to assemble nineteen-thousand people across Australia to sing the ever popular Africa, a song recorded by American band Toto in 1982.

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