Showing all posts about Australian literature
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
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
Julia Gillard talks to Stella winners Evelyn Araluen and Evie Wyld
13 May 2022
Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard talks to the 2022 Stella Prize winner Evelyn Araluen, in her podcast A Podcast of One’s Own. Also joining the discussion is Evie Wyld, winner of the 2021 Stella, and Jaclyn Booton, executive director of the Stella Prize.
To celebrate the 2022 prize, Julia sits down with Evelyn Araluen, this year’s prize winner, to discuss her award-winning debut book, Drop Bear, which weaves together past and present, her personal history and the story of indigenous Australia through powerful lyrical verse. Evelyn shares her writing experience, her journey into poetry and what it’s been like being recognised by the prize.
Julia also speaks with Jaclyn Booton, the Executive Director of the Stella Prize, about how it was established and why it is so important to spotlight Australian women’s writing. Evie Wyld also joins this bumper episode to share her experience as the 2021 prize winner and talk about her critically acclaimed novel, The Bass Rock.
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Australian literature, Evelyn Araluen, Evie Wyld, Julia Gillard, Stella Prize
Melbourne Jewish Book Week 2022
13 May 2022
After being held online the last of couple of years on account of the pandemic, Melbourne Jewish Book Week returns as in person event from Saturday 28 May until Tuesday 31 May 2022.
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Australian literature, festivals
Evelyn Araluen in conversation with Jeanine Leane
10 May 2022
Some late news to hand… Australian poet Evelyn Araluen, winner of the 2022 Stella Prize, will speak with Wiradjuri writer Jeanine Leane, at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, this Thursday evening, 12 May 2022.
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Australian literature, Evelyn Araluen, Stella Prize
Kevin Rudd discusses The Avoidable War with Ben Doherty
9 May 2022
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd will be discussing his book The Avoidable War (published by Hachette Australia, March 2022) with Ben Doherty, the Sydney based international affairs reporter for The Guardian, at Gleebooks, on the evening of Thursday 12 May.
The relationship between the US and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. It rests on a seismic fault of cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility. No other nations are so quick to offend and be offended. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily.
The 2022 Australian federal election campaign in full swing, and China’s rise, and the potential for conflict with the United States, are matters that have been in the spotlight. And while Australians may not be Rudd’s target readership, Daniel Flitton, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, suggests The Avoidable War is essential reading for us nonetheless:
Rudd hasn’t written this book for Australians and that is exactly why Australians should read it. This is not a political screed or point-scoring exercise in domestic battles. Sure, there are familiar Ruddisms expressed. The word “core” gets a particular workout to explain interests or principles. But the book amounts to a thoughtful and well-structured examination of the dynamics between the world’s greatest power and its greatest challenger, the consequences of which Australians cannot escape, but can seek to shape.
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Australian literature, Kevin Rudd
Simone Amelia Jordan on writing your first book
4 May 2022
Sydney based journalist and writer Simone Amelia Jordan, winner of the 2021 Richell Prize for emerging authors, on overcoming your sense of imposter syndrome, and getting on with writing your first book.
…it’s an absolute life goal for writers and non-writers alike, to get these stories out of us and into the world. I’m a journalist by trade, so writing creative non-fiction has been a challenge. But I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone to learn and be the best I can be.
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Australian literature, Richell Prize, Simone Amelia Jordan
2022 Best Young Australian Novelists awards
2 May 2022
Ella Baxter, Michael Burrows, and Diana Reid, have been named winners of the Sydney Morning Herald’s 2022 Best Young Australian Novelists awards.
Judges Thuy On, Gretchen Shirm and SMH Spectrum editor Melanie Kembrey said the three novels ‘stood out from the many entrants for their strong narrative voices, memorable characters and sharp writing — they’ll make you laugh, cry and keep thinking long after you’ve turned the final page’.
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Australian literature, literary awards
The 2022 Brisbane Writers Festival
2 May 2022
The 2022 Brisbane Writers Festival opens tomorrow, Tuesday 3 May 2022, and concludes on Sunday 8 May. This is the festival’s sixtieth event, and if the program is anything to go by, it looks like there is something for everyone.
In this special year of the sixtieth celebration of the Brisbane Writers Festival, we bring a world of beautiful, wise, strong and urgent voices from across the Pacific Ocean and from around the world to Meanjin/Brisbane.
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Australian literature, festivals
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen wins the 2022 Stella Prize
28 April 2022
Dropbear, the debut collection of poetry by Melbourne based Australian writer Evelyn Araluen, has been named winner of the 2022 Stella Prize.
Melissa Lucashenko, chair of the 2022 Stella Prize judges, says Dropbear “announces the arrival of a stunning new talent to Australian literature.”
“When you read Evelyn Araluen’s Dropbear you’ll be taken on a wild ride. Like the namesake of its title, this collection is simultaneously comical and dangerous. If you live here and don’t acquire the necessary local knowledge, the drop bear might definitely getcha! But for those initiated in its mysteries, the drop bear is a playful beast, a prank, a riddle, a challenge and a game. Dropbear is remarkably assured for a debut poetry collection, and I think we can safely say it announces the arrival of a stunning new talent to Australian literature. Congratulations, Evelyn.”
At twenty-nine, Araluen is the youngest recipient of the literary prize that celebrates the writing of Australian women, and says she may never have become a poet had she not studied her great-grandfather’s language:
Araluen, a descendant of the Bundjalung Nation born in Dharug Country and now based in Naarm/Melbourne, began writing poetry while she was studying her great-grandfather’s language at TAFE, becoming attuned to poetic techniques like fragmentation and different sentence structures. “I honestly don’t think I would have become a poet if I hadn’t started learning that language,” she told ABC Arts in 2021.
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Australian literature, Evelyn Araluen, literary awards, Stella Prize