Twenty-one years after he made Amélie, full title The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain, starring Audrey Tautou, the film’s director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has revealed Amélie was actually a KGB spy. He makes the startling admission in a short film, Amelie: the Real Story, which use … | Continue reading
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, by American interdisciplinary artist and writer Anne de Marcken, and Tell, by British author and teacher Jonathan Buckley, have been named joint winners of the 2022 Novel Prize. The Novel Prize is a biennial award for a book-length work of lit … | Continue reading
Craig Silvey has taken out both the Indie Book of the Year award, and the Children’s book gong, in the 2023 Indie Book Awards. The Indie Book of the Year award: Runt by Craig Silvey Fiction: Horse by Geraldine Brooks Non-fiction: The Book Of Roads And Kingdoms by Richard Fidler D … | Continue reading
Generation Z, being people born between 1997 and 2015, prefer to read paper books rather than electronic ones, according to World Economic Forum data. A break from eye-straining smartphone screens, a desire to support local bricks and mortar book stores, and the smell of newly pu … | Continue reading
Fleur Morrison, writing at Readability: I have a love/hate relationship with politics. I love that we have a stable form of politics in Australia, even though sometimes it can get a little heated and it certainly isn’t without its problems. But I hate that it has taken over write … | Continue reading
Ashley Kalagian Blunt discusses her new novel Dark Mode, with Dani Vee on the Words and Nerds podcast. Plenty of talk about the dark web, which features prominently in the novel. | Continue reading
Deciding to donate our bodily organs, perhaps in the event of our unexpected demise, is a decision we make, then largely forget about. After all, when the time comes, we won’t be around to think about it, nor appreciate the difference doing so might make to the lives of others. F … | Continue reading
Australian literary podcaster Claudine Tinellis talks with Sydney based author Dianne Yarwood on her show, Talking Aussie Books. Much of the discussion is about Yarwood’s debut novel, The Wakes, which I also wrote about the other week. | Continue reading
Fear of litigation is prompting some Australian publishers to reject manuscripts for titles they think may be contentious, particularly books about controversial public figures. Melbourne based writer and editor Hilary McPhee, says poorer quality books are the result, if public i … | Continue reading
There’s a few tech origin-story films around that the moment. The Playlist is about the founding of music streaming service Spotify, while BlackBerry backgrounds the invention of one of the first smartphones, being, obviously, the BlackBerry. But here’s the one we’ve been waiting … | Continue reading
Jeannie Kidera, writing for Big Think: The capacity for empathy — to first identify and then understand and share in someone else’s feelings — is largely held as a virtue these days. Yet, philosophically speaking, there is a bit of a knowledge problem that makes being naturally e … | Continue reading
London based writer and reviewer Susie Mesure, writing for The Guardian: Elizabeth Strout, the Booker-shortlisted author of Olive Kitteridge and the Lucy Barton books, is also taking books at a more tranquil pace. “I was never a fast reader [but] I think I read more slowly than I … | Continue reading
The Sydney Writers Festival 2023 program was published this evening, and features a star studded line-up of Australian and international speakers. Among them are former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Sydney author Tracey Lien, Tasmasian writer Robbie Arnott, and Fiona M … | Continue reading
The 2023 International Booker Prize longlist was unveiled yesterday, and features eleven novels published internationally, which have been translated into English. The 2023 judges are looking for the best work of international fiction translated into English, selected from entrie … | Continue reading
Filippo Bernardini, also known as the Spine Collector, was arrested in early 2022, after stealing the manuscripts of numerous high profile authors. Bernardini managed to convince his victims — who included Sally Rooney and Margaret Atwood — to send the manuscripts of their latest … | Continue reading
If you felt like a fish out of water during your school days, spare a thought for seventeen year old Lucy. She’s just been enrolled at Drake’s College, a school nurturing the magical talent of young people, located in Perth, Western Australia. But there’s only one thing: Lucy’s n … | Continue reading
Presently about fourteen percent of Australians do not own a smartphone, while some seventeen percent do not use social media. So although a minority, they don’t exactly — no pun intended — stand in isolation. Twenty-something Sydneysider Reagan Carsen is a person who resides in … | Continue reading
Gender Queer: A Memoir, a graphic novel written and illustrated by American cartoonist and author Maia Kobabe, has been removed from the shelves of a Queensland library, according to a 9News report. Local police have since referred the publication to the Australian Classification … | Continue reading
Image courtesy of Eli Digital Creative. To mark its twenty-fifth anniversary, Britain’s Baillie Gifford literary prize, which recognises excellence in non-fiction writing, is holding a Winner of Winners Award to select the best title — the best of the best, if you like — among th … | Continue reading
Before she lost her job, Anja sold antique furniture at an auction house in Melbourne, capital of the Australian state of Victoria. The pieces she prepared for sale though were more than mere objects to her. These aged items of furniture, and bric-a-brac, were possessed of intric … | Continue reading
A ten year high school reunion goes horribly awry, after a tidal wave transforms the venue into an island, leaving old students of an all-girls school stranded. Will the former school-mates co-operate, or will tensions and rivalries from their school days resurface and overwhelm … | Continue reading
The 2023 Penguin Literary Prize shortlist, consisting of six manuscripts by new and emerging Australian writers of literary fiction, has been unveiled: The Elementals by Liz Allan The Boy Who Wept Rabbits by Benjamin Forbes Falling and Burning by Michael Krockenberger Jade and Em … | Continue reading
Canberra based Australian author and anthropologist Diane Bell, was yesterday named recipient of the 2023 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship. Diane was awarded $20,000 for her proposed biography of the relationship between Ngarrindjeri woman Louisa Karpany, née Kontinyeri (c … | Continue reading
It was the title of Thirst for Salt, published by Allen & Unwin in April 2023, the debut novel of New York based Australian author Madelaine Lucas, that initially piqued my curiosity. What did the name refer to? Was it a reference to the setting of the story, an isolated coastal … | Continue reading
In the ten years since its establishment, winners of the Stella Prize have seen pleasing increases in sales of their books, says Jaclyn Booton, executive director of the Australian literary award: She says the impact of the Stella, on writers and readers, grows exponentially over … | Continue reading
Over fifty percent of books published in 2020 in the United States, were written by women, says Joel Waldfogel, an economist at the University of Minnesota: By analyzing data from Goodreads, Bookstat, Amazon, and the National Library of Congress, Waldfogel found that women’s shar … | Continue reading
Image courtesy of David Condrey. A few weeks ago film production company Warner Brothers announced plans to make a raft of new movies based on the Lord of the Rings volumes, written by J.R.R. Tolkien. Many of these new movies will be set several hundred years before events depict … | Continue reading
Finding someone to publish science fiction in Australia is difficult but not wholly impossible. A number of Australian authors report difficulty in having works of anything other than contemporary or literary fiction published locally, forcing them to take their work to overseas … | Continue reading
The annual State of the (Writing) Nation address was presented on Wednesday 1 March 2023, in conjunction with Writers Victoria and the Wheeler Centre, by Melbourne based Australian author Jennifer Down. In short, the state of the Australian writing nation is not good. Down, winne … | Continue reading
A secluded, comfortable, cabin deep in the woods, without internet or phone access, seems like the ideal location to spend a writer’s residency. But writing without day to day distractions may not be as conducive to productivity as it sounds, says American author Alice Robb, writ … | Continue reading
The 2023 Stella Prize longlist was announced this evening by Melbourne based Australian author Alice Pung. The twelve books are: The Furies by Mandy Beaumont Every Version of You by Grace Chan We Come With This Place by Debra Dank big beautiful female theory by Eloise Grills The … | Continue reading
Law makers in the United States are considering legislation to ban the use of video sharing app TikTok, citing national security concerns: On Tuesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee was expected to move forward with a bill that would give President Joe Biden the authority to … | Continue reading
I’m yet to read The Wakes, published by Hachette Australia, March 2023, by Sydney based Australian author Dianne Yarwood, but I’m already convinced it could be adapted to film. I’ve even thought of a name: Four Funerals and a Divorce. I’m not actually sure a divorce even occurs i … | Continue reading
The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2023 shortlists were announced today, with Australian written works nominated across more than twelve prize categories. Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au, Grimmish by Michael Winkler, The Upwelling by Lystra Rose, Another Day in the Colony by Ch … | Continue reading
The stories of three women, living millennia apart, form a single, though not immediately obvious, thread that runs through One Illumined Thread, published by HarperCollins, March 2023, the debut novel of Australian author Sally Colin-James. A young woman living two thousand year … | Continue reading
Melissa Clark-Reynolds and Beth Barany talk about writing science fiction on the Writer’s Fun Zone podcast. One point that emerges is science fiction’s relevance to contemporary matters on planet Earth. This at a time when some Australian publishers have no interest in looking at … | Continue reading
There’s all sorts of reasons, but a lack of time to seek out new compositions, and not simply a love of “old music”, is one: One explanation for the age-based reduction in music consumption simply posits that responsibility-laden adults may have less discretionary time to explore … | Continue reading
Tommy is desperate to create a legacy for himself. But he can’t wait until he reaches old age. Tommy needs people to remember who he is sooner than that. Before his birthday, to be precise. For, come the conclusion of each lap of his around the Sun, all memory of his existence is … | Continue reading
Phil Siarri, writing at The PhilaVerse, notes the number of new podcasts has declined by eighty-percent globally, compared to 2020-2022, based on data published by Listen Notes. 219,178 new podcasts were created in 2022 as opposed to 337,063 in 2019. But James Cridland, writing a … | Continue reading
Here’s a selection of Australian written books, either recently published, or in the pipeline, that I’ve spotted in the last week, for the consideration of your TBR list. Viking Women by Lisa Hannett, tells the stories of the wives and mothers, girls and slaves, widows and witche … | Continue reading
If ChatGPT wrote a book for you, can you really claim to have written said book yourself, asks American author Emily Temple, writing at Literary Hub: Would-be author Brett Schickler told Reuters that after he learned about ChatGPT — which can instantly generate cogent blocks of t … | Continue reading
To make good art argues Billy Oppenheimer, writing for Every, the art creator must have a connection of some sort to people. As an example, he cites the writers of the old Seinfeld TV sitcom, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who, in the early days of the show, would go out and dis … | Continue reading
Twenty-something Sydneysider Rory is ready for a prolonged period of isolation. Her job, writing reports for a private investigator, means she doesn’t need to leave her apartment building for work. She has a pet dog to keep her company, and the roof area of the building is a fine … | Continue reading
Three Ukrainian authors, Kateryna Babkina, Olesya Khromeychuk, and Maria Tumarkin, who were scheduled to speak at Adelaide Writers Week in March 2023, are no longer participating in the event: The event’s director, Louise Adler, confirmed Kateryna Babkina and Olesya Khromeychuk, … | Continue reading
Puffin, an imprint of book publisher Penguin, has altered a selection of words in some of the children’s books written by late British author Roald Dahl: In 1964 novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which has been adapted twice as films in 1971 and 2005, starring Gene Wilde … | Continue reading
American author James Patterson recently told GQ Magazine he is working on no fewer than thirty-one manuscripts simultaneously. That’s impressive. Patterson’s output comes down to two things, one being his daily routine: “I do what I do seven days a week. I’ll usually get up at 5 … | Continue reading
Australian author Alice Boer-Endacott, writing for the Australian Young Adult Literature Alliance (#LoveOzYA) blog: However, despite the growing mainstream appreciation of fantasy (and science fiction) texts, especially within YA, Will [Kostakis] notes, “it’s as if we’re conditio … | Continue reading
Yagoona is a suburb in the southwest of Sydney, located about twenty kilometres from the city’s CBD. An Aboriginal word meaning “now” or “today”, Yagoona was accorded a unique claim to fame in 1971, when it became host to the first McDonald’s hamburger restaurant in Australia. At … | Continue reading