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A Novel Approach to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favourite books, so imagine my surprise when Jack Collins sent me this. It's Bradbury's classic, interpreted in fewer than three minutes and accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations...
Friday Fave: Hidden by Mirranda Burton
…In which I invite someone bookish to tell us about one of their all-time favourite works of fiction, and why it’s so special to them. This Friday Fave comes from author Laurie Steed:
I had flown in from Perth to attend The 2011 Melbourne Writers Festival. I wasn’t on the programme that particular year, and, truth be told, was not sure why I’d come. I spoke the previous year on being a professional writer; now here I was being a professional slacker instead...
The Dos and Don'ts of Workshop Etiquette
The Emerging Writer is due to launch at The 2013 Emerging Writers Festival. For those not in the know, The Emerging Writer is an insider's guide to the craft, philosophy and politics of being a writer. Whether you're facing your first blank page or negotiating a publishing contract, this book is full of indispensable advice for any emerging writer hoping to turn their seedling of an idea into a mighty tree...
#36: The Scarlatti Tilt by Richard Brautigan
Richard Brautigan was a novelist, poet and short story writer in the 1960's and 70's. Depending on who you talk to, his work was beautiful or depressing, funny or tragic, and perhaps both at the same time. Opinions being opinions, I won't bore you with mine, but to say that at his best, he wrote some of the most stunningly beautiful fiction I've ever read...
#35: Where We Must Be by Laura van den Berg
While it's important to honour the classics of short fiction as truly great stories, I feel it's equally important to place modern writers within such a context. It's all too easy to suggest that today's writers struggle to compare without fully evaluating their experimentation with style, topic, and structure...
#34: My Father's Axe by Tim Winton
It’s easy to neglect the Australian short fiction that's shone in the past thirty years. Were one to revisit the classics, they'd find writers such as Moorhouse, Jolley, Carey, Goldsworthy, Kennedy, Tuner-Hospital, Hitchcock, and Robert Drewe, all of whom have experimented with the form to great effect. Unless they’ve been living in a commune, they’d also consider Tim Winton and his incredible talent for writing powerful, succinct short fiction...
Let's Talk about Sex (In Writing)
This post was supposed to be about Robert Drewe's Baby Oil, but I reread the story and it didn't grab me...
The Best Short Stories and Collections of 2010: Part Two
Just in case you didn't get your dose of short fiction magic on Wednesday, I now present part two of 2010's best short stories and collections. The stories are different (although Wayne Macauley rates a second mention) and so are the experts...aside from that, the same magic pervades throughout. More to read, more to savour...
The Best Short Stories and Collections of 2010: Part One
2010 has seen a dazzling array of stories, anthologies, and short story collections. Rather than prescribe my own favourite short stories for the year, I've found some of the best people in the Australian literary scene to help us out. Here Australia's writers, publishers and editors share their best short stories and collections from 2010...
#33: Squeaker's Mate by Barbara Baynton - guest post by Ryan O'Neill
A confession: Up until six years ago, I had never read an Australian short story. Not a word by Henry Lawson, Peter Carey, Murray Bail or Cate Kennedy. In fact, the only Australian book I had read was Marcus Clarke’s “For the Term of his Natural Life” which I found to be overlong and overwritten...
#32: The Swim Team by Miranda July
Miranda July came to me at a time when I was feeling especially fragile. It was a time when every noise was too loud and I kept finding myself behind people who seemed to have no idea where they were going. I wasn't sure of the antidote. I thought rather than honouring my desire to disconnect, I should connect more with people, feel their sadness, wonder what they were thinking about when they smiled on trains and in moments otherwise not noted in the great books of history...
#31: Procession by Paddy O'Reilly: guest post by Bronwyn Mehan
Images from Paddy O’Reilly’s Procession have stayed with me since I first read it over a month ago in Going Down Swinging No. 30. So when Laurie invited me to stick a story I’d been chewing onto his Gum wall, the choice was easy...