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

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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.

The Transformations, a new novel by Australian author Andrew Pippos

22 October 2025

The Transformations, the new novel by Sydney based Australian author Andrew Pippos (Instagram page), will be published next week, on Tuesday 28 October 2025.

This is a story for the times, if the synopsis is anything to go by:

In the fading glow of Australia’s print journalism era, The National is more than a newspaper: it’s an institution, and the only place that George Desoulis has ever felt at home. A world-weary subeditor with a bookish sensibility and a painful past, George is one of nature’s loners.

But a late-night encounter with an unorthodox and self-assured reporter, Cassandra Gwan, begins to unravel both of their carefully managed worlds. As the decline of the newspaper enters a desperate stage, George and Cassandra struggle to balance their turbulent relationship with their responsibilities to family, and the compromises each has built their life upon.

The Transformations follows up Pippos’ debut, Lucky’s, published in 2020, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin literary award, among others, in 2021. Lucky’s, which sits in my e-bookshelf, was a great yarn about a life well lived, and I’m looking forward to reading this new work from Pippos.

Tasma Walton, Robbie Arnott, jointly win ARA Historical Novel Prize

17 October 2025

Authors Tasma Walton (Instagram link), based in Western Australia, and Robbie Arnott (Instagram link), based in Tasmania, have been named joint winners of the 2025 ARA Historical Novel Prize, with their novels I am Nannertgarrook, and Dusk, respectively.

I’m yet to pick up I am Nannertgarrook, but read Dusk earlier this year. It seems to me members of literary award judging panels must have their work cut out for them when novels of the calibre of Dusk are among shortlisted titles.

Suzanne Leal won in the Children and Young Adults category with her novel The Year We Escaped. Awarded annually, the ARA Historical Novel Prize celebrates the work of Australian and New Zealand historical novel writers, with prizes valued at a total of one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars.

Long running Australian literary journal Meanjin closes December 2025

5 September 2025

The final issue of the eighty-five year old quarterly magazine, will be published in December. The Melbourne University Press, which funds the publication, says the decision to stop production of the journal was made on financial grounds.

A veritable potpourri of Australian authors have written for Meanjin in the past. The move, as one author says, will be a blow to the present and future of Australian literature.

Mind blown: are these the best science-fiction/fantasy books of the twenty-first century?

25 August 2025

Singapore based Australian blogger, and science-fiction writer Skribe, recently asked his Mastodon followers to name one sci-fi/fantasy novel, written this century, that has blown their minds. From those suggestions, he drew up this list of seven titles:

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, published in 2020
Anathem by Neal Stephenson, published in 2010
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, published in 2013
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, published in 2015
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, published in 2020
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, published in 2021
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, published in 2015

In a since closed poll asking people to vote for the title they considered the best, I went for Piranesi. Mainly because it was the only novel from the list that I’d read, but also because British author Susanna Clarke’s tome compelled me to write at length about it afterwards.

Long story short, Piranesi is about someone of the same name, who finds themselves mostly alone in a house of epic proportions. It can literally take days to move from one part of the multi-level structure, to another. The house itself is a character in its own right, and as I read through the story, I almost felt as if I was there with Piranesi, so vivid was Clarke’s description of the sprawling abode.

Picnic at Hanging Rock, a film by Peter Weir, released fifty years ago

9 August 2025

Yesterday, Friday 8 August, marked fifty years since Picnic at Hanging Rock, trailer, premiered in Adelaide, South Australia. They story about some students of a girls’ school who go missing during a picnic, continues to captivate, and baffle, film watchers.

The Sydney born Australian filmmaker Peter Weir has made a slew of top-notch movies. These include Gallipoli, Dead Poets Society, and The Truman Show, but Picnic at Hanging Rock is by far — to my mind at least — his most enigmatic.

The screenplay was based on the 1967 novel of the same name, by late Australian author Joan Lindsay. Much of mystery enveloping the film stemmed from the belief it was based on actual events. The story is in fact fiction (thankfully).

I re-watched Picnic at Hanging Rock a few years ago, and soon after saw a lesser known Weir feature, The Plumber, which is truly bat shit mad/disturbing. Take a look at the trailer. If not already, Weir’s work should be required learning at Australian film schools.

War of the Worlds 2025, with Ice Cube, scores ZERO on Rotten Tomatoes

8 August 2025

Jesse Hassenger, writing for The Guardian:

The real question is how audiences have made it through an unconvincing cheapie like War of the Worlds — a sci-fi epic that seems to take place in real time yet features a vast and coordinated worldwide mobilization of multiple armed forces — without shutting it off in disgust (it boasts a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

Check out the trailer. The 2025 adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel — published as a book in 1898 — directed by American filmmaker Rich Lee, had been sitting in the store room since production wrapped five years ago.

War of the Worlds’ zero percent score on review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, is in sharp contrast to the one-hundred percent score achieved by 2022’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. At least for a time.

I only learned a few years ago Wells’ novel has an Australian connection, being written as a protest against the treatment of Indigenous/First Nations people in Tasmania, at the hands of British colonisers. In a bid to sway public opinion, Wells portrayed a terrifying invasion of England by powerful extra-terrestrials, to help people comprehend the atrocities taking place in Australia.

Sydney Writers’ Festival goes all year round at State Library of NSW

31 July 2025

Sydney Writers’ Festival is teaming up with the State Library of NSW to host literary events throughout the year. This in addition, no doubt, to the main festival event held annually.

The partnership will create a dedicated literature hub in Sydney, providing a dynamic, year-round home for storytelling. It will boost participation in literary events, embed reading and writing into Sydney’s cultural identity, and deliver a diverse program of events, workshops and readings.

There could be in the order of eighty events taking place at the State Library each year. Hopefully the initiative will be a shot in the arm for Australian literature, at a time when both remuneration rates for writers, and recreational reading, are in decline.

Writers residencies to commence at Waverley Cemetery, Sydney, Australia

31 July 2025

The old caretaker’s cottage is to become home to small groups of writers for five months of the year:

The site’s caretaker’s cottage will soon be converted into a workspace and temporary residence for writers. The program will host three writers at a time, each staying for a five-month period. Accommodation will feature private rooms equipped for reading, research and drafting.

You don’t see it on every travel guide for the Sydney region, but Waverley Cemetery is worth the visit if you’re in town. Perched above a cliff, looking out onto the Tasman Ocean, the experience of walking between row after of row of gravestones is a truly contemplative. Transcendental even. This would be an amazing place to live for a few months. Are bloggers accepted?

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