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

Showing all posts about literature

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?

Cure, the fourth novel by Australian author Katherine Brabon

21 July 2025

Cure, the fourth novel by Melbourne based Australia author Katherine Brabon, was published this month. As with most of Brabon’s novels so far, Cure is set outside of Australia, in Italy:

Vera and Thea are mother and daughter. Vera writes for the internet: she constructs identities and scenarios for brands to cater to the ideal consumer. Yet she also consumes the offerings of the online world herself: the addictive pursuit of a cure, the narratives she craves in which mother and daughter find a way out of the shared experience of chronic illness. She becomes preoccupied with a blog written by a woman named Claudia, a mother whose daughter also has a chronic illness.

While on holiday in Italy, Thea writes in her journal. She is also constructing a character: an image of herself as she grapples with having the same illness as her mother, Vera. But gradually another person emerges in her journal, through her imaginings of her mother in the same house, the same city, at the same age. They have come to Italy to see where Vera’s family originates, but also to chase a promised cure in the form of a man said to be able to heal Thea’s illness.

I read Brabon’s second novel, The Shut Ins, which was published in 2021, and explored the Japanese phenomenon of hikikomori, where people shut themselves away from society, as in never leave their room, for sometimes years on end.

I was particularly intrigued by a character known only as M, and wrote a longer piece in 2021, trying to figure out who she was. Some people felt certain they knew who she was, but I wasn’t so sure. It’s not too often a novel piques my curiosity thusly…

The Top 100 bestselling books of 2025, as of July

10 July 2025

As complied by indie online book marketplace Bookshop.org. I’ve only read one title on the list, Careless People, by former Facebook Director of Public Policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams.

I used to read three to four books a month, but with the day work, and since ramping up what I do at disassociated a few years ago, book reading has taken a backseat.

But what can you do; there’s only so many hours in a day. I like the idea of publishing a list like this at the half year mark, all the year end editions can be overwhelming.

RELATED CONTENT

books, literature, reading

The 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award Shortlist

26 June 2025

Six titles have been included on the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award Shortlist, which was announced yesterday:

Chinese Postman, by Brian Castro
Theory & Practice, by Michelle de Kretser
Dirt Poor Islanders, by Winnie Dunn
Compassion, by Julie Janson
Ghost Cities, by Siang Lu
Highway 13, by Fiona McFarlane

2025 could be a good year for Michelle de Kretser if Theory & Practice wins the Miles Franklin, the title won this year’s Stella Prize. I don’t know about anyone else, but I thought the exclusion of Juice, by Tim Winton was puzzling.

The inclusion of Fiona McFarlane’s Highway 13 has also surprised some people. It’s a collection of short stories, and is the first time the format has reached a Miles Franklin shortlist.

The Miles Franklin honours excellence in Australian novel writing annually, and the winner will be announced on Thursday 24 July 2025. See you then.

Touch Grass by Mary Colussi wins Penguin Literary Prize 2025

17 June 2025

Sydney based Australian writer Mary Colussi has been named winner of the 2025 Penguin Literary Prize, with her manuscript Touch Grass. Going by this brief outline of the story, Touch Grass sounds like a work of speculative fiction:

Touch Grass tells the story of a depressed deletion specialist as she starts to leave her body at unexpected moments and finds herself at the surreal centre of a global panic.

Awarded annually, the Penguin Literary Prize was established in 2017 “to discover, nurture and develop literary fiction writers, providing a platform for new and diverse voices to emerge.”

Melbourne journalist and writer Chloe Adams (Instagram page) won the 2024 award, with the manuscript for her novel The Occupation, which will be published next month.

We’ll probably have to wait on a little while before learning more about the synopsis of Touch Grass.

Pictures of You, a collection of short stories by Tony Birch⁠

7 June 2025

The image features the cover of a book titled 'Pictures of You: Collected Stories' by Tony Birch. The cover is dark with the title in large, prominent letters. Below the title is a black-and-white photograph of two children, one of whom is wearing a dark coloured hat.

Hailing from Melbourne, Australian author Tony Birch has been writing books since 2006. Pictures of You, being published on Tuesday 30 September 2025, is a retrospective of his best short stories written over the last twenty years. I should think that will be quite a few.

Cherrypicking from across his oeuvre, this anthology showcases his skills at finding the extraordinary in ordinary lives, and the often-unexpected connections and kindnesses between strangers. His work is by turns poignant, sad, profound and funny — and always powerful. Throughout this stellar collection, Birch’s preoccupation with the humanity of those who are often marginalised or overlooked, and the search for justice for people and the natural environment shines bright.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, a film by Laura Piani, with Camille Rutherford

30 May 2025

A still from Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. A woman is seated on a wooden bench outside a bookstore, reading a book. Behind her, shelves filled with books are visible through the shop window, alongside handwritten text on a chalkboard. The scene conveys a cozy, serene atmosphere.

A scene from Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, trailer, is the debut feature of Paris based French filmmaker Laura Piani.

A desperately single bookseller, lost in a fantasy world, finds herself forced to fulfill her dreams of becoming a writer in order to stop messing up her love life.

Protagonist Agathe (Camille Rutherford), lives in Paris, where she works at (the well known) Shakespeare & Co English language bookshop. She also aspires to be an author, but struggles with writers block. To her surprise, Agathe is invited to join a Jane Austen writers retreat in the United Kingdom. There she meets Oliver (Charlie Anson), a descendent of Austen.

Here might be a Jane Austen inspired rom-com that doesn’t seem to riff too much on the Jane Austen hopeless romantic trope. It doesn’t look like Jane Austen Wrecked My Life will be in Australian cinemas any time in the near future, so this might be one to stream instead.

Book bloopers: when authors AI prompts are published in their novels

26 May 2025

Matthew Gault, writing for 404 Media:

In the middle of steamy scene between the book’s heroine and the dragon prince Ash there’s this: “I’ve rewritten the passage to align more with J. Bree’s style, which features more tension, gritty undertones, and raw emotional subtext beneath the supernatural elements:”

The excerpt is said to be found in chapter three of Lena McDonald’s novel Darkhollow Academy: Year 2, although apparently it has since been removed from later editions of the book.

If you must use AI, especially in fiction work, remember the rules, whereby the first rule of using AI to write a novel, is not to be caught using AI.

For those wondering about the J. Bree reference, J Bree is a West Australian based author of fantasy and dark romance novels. The incident also indicates that Bree’s work has been appropriated by AI models, most likely without her prior knowledge, or approval.

Nam Le wins 2025 NSW Literary Awards Book of the Year prize

21 May 2025

Vietnamese Australian lawyer turned writer Nam Le has won the Book of the Year Award prize, with 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, a collection of poetry, in the 2025 NSW Literary Awards.

Earlier, Le was named recipient of the Multicultural NSW Award. Winners of the NSW Literary Awards, previously known as the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, which span eleven categories, including the people’s choice prize, were announced at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, on Monday 19 May 2025. The Book of the Year recipient is selected from the winners of the Award’s other categories.

Other recipients include Fiona McFarlane, who won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction with Highway 13, and Emma Lord, who took out the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature prize for her debut novel Anomaly. The full list of 2025 winners can be seen here.

« older posts

newer posts »