Irritating, StimulatingAustralian writer Shane Jesse Christmass has a cult following, but his work attracts little attention in Australia itself. What does his fringe status reveal about the forces driving and shaping literary culture in this country?Jaimee Frances Edwards26 Nov. 2025
Between Poles: Fear and RadicalismFifty years on from the dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s government, Jeanine Leane offers a personal reflection on the sweeping changes brought about by its reformist agenda as well as the politics of envy and fear besetting the nation then – and now....Jeanine Leane28 Nov. 2025
The Monastery and the MonaroHow do Australian writers find an overseas readership? Reviewing the highly acclaimed Stone Yard Devotional, Catriona Menzies-Pike surveys the critical oversights and abstractions that allow stories from and about Australia to travel the world.Catriona Menzies-Pike17 Nov. 2025
Telling Truth AslantIn June 2025, Selina Tusitala Marsh was appointed the inaugural Commonwealth Poet Laureate. Alexandra Effe speaks to Marsh about the laureateship, championing Pacific writing, and the wide-ranging influences on Marsh’s own creative practice.Alexandra Effe, Selina Tusitala Marsh14 Nov. 2025
The Mystery of the Missing FrontierThere is a curious absence at the heart of Konrad Muller’s My Heart at Evening. The omission is intentional, but will we perceive it? Tony Hughes-d’Aeth considers what the novel reveals about the settler’s willingness to engage in self-delusion.Tony Hughes-d’Aeth12 Dec. 2025
At the CuspAn encounter with David Brooks’ fiction proved pivotal for Luke Beesley as a student in the nineties. Reviewing Brooks’ new and selected poems decades later, Beesley samples a corpus as conversant in avant-garde poetics as it is in animal rights.Luke Beesley10 Dec. 2025
Where Have All the Pithiatics Gone?Reviewing Jacques Lacan’s early writings, Robert Boncardo and Christian R. Gelder pull back the curtain on French psychiatry in the early twentieth century – a medical milieu that would prove pivotal for Lacan’s understanding of psychosis. Robert Boncardo, Christian R. Gelder4 Dec. 2025
Critical/MineralMuch has been written about the pastoral as a theme in Australian literature. But what about the mines? Reviewing Verity Borthwick’s Hollow Air, Roslyn Jolly descends into the overlooked under-realm of Australian mining fiction.Roslyn Jolly1 Dec. 2025
Deaf AestheticsUntil recently Patricia Carlon’s crime fiction was better known overseas. Jessica White juxtaposes Carlon’s novels with the work of Deaf architects and artists to plumb the rage and isolation of living in a society where deaf people are ignored.Jessica White15 Dec. 2025
Re-living in the SeventiesGuided by the Skyhooks, Ali Jane Smith revisits the politics and comedy of position-taking in Frank Moorhouse’s writing about the seventies. Whatever happened to the revolution? Who was in the front seat in that era of ‘elusive transformation’?Ali Jane Smith12 Dec. 2025
Between Poles: Fear and RadicalismFifty years on from the dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s government, Jeanine Leane offers a personal reflection on the sweeping changes brought about by its reformist agenda as well as the politics of envy and fear besetting the nation then – and now....Jeanine Leane28 Nov. 2025
In Defence of ClichéWhen Henry Chase Richards shifted from writing advertising copy to being a Writer with a capital ‘W’, the hardest thing to leave behind was a penchant for cliché. Old habits die hard, but perhaps calls for their death are unwarranted.Henry Chase Richards10 Nov. 2025
Telling Truth AslantIn June 2025, Selina Tusitala Marsh was appointed the inaugural Commonwealth Poet Laureate. Alexandra Effe speaks to Marsh about the laureateship, championing Pacific writing, and the wide-ranging influences on Marsh’s own creative practice.Alexandra Effe, Selina Tusitala Marsh14 Nov. 2025
This Changes EverythingIn the wake of winning the 2025 NSW Translation Prize, Elizabeth Bryer converses with fellow translator Sarah Timmer Harvey on the impact of material conditions on one’s practice and on translation as a radical and radically personal act. Elizabeth Bryer, Sarah Timmer Harvey3 Oct. 2025
Living it Line by LineHossein Asgari and Kim Cheng Boey talk about the novels they have each written about a real-life poet: respectively, the mid-twentieth-century Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad and the Tang-dynasty Chinese poet Du Fu.Hossein Asgari, Kim Cheng Boey13 June. 2025
The Poet EatersIn 2015, Ben Etherington published ‘The Poet Tasters’, a forensic critique of Australian poetry reviewing. Poet and poetry podcaster Alice Allan talks to James Jiang about the enduring impact of Etherington’s essay ten years (and 300 episodes) on....Alice Allan, James Jiang10 June. 2025
