On writing

‘This is not an essay or a book review. This is a love story. I fell in love with writing, and then I stopped. I’m trying to figure out what happened, and whether I can fall in love again’

‘Writing ecocentric fiction is relational. Like ecology, like phenomenology. Like a medicine bundle. Like a carrier bag.’

‘I do commercial translations, literary translation doesn’t pay the bills and requires a lot more work. I translate insurance forms, information leaflets for medication, instructions for prostate operations… It’s a repetitive job and in general very boring. But I think about Kafka, about how his job at an insurance office may have pushed him to immerse himself more fully in his fiction, and that gives me some consolation’ – Fabian Martinez Siccardi.

‘I really wanted especially to have a voice for those kids who think they’re weird, think they’re strange, and there’s always going to be kids like that.’

In the latter half of 2016 I set about writing a poem for each Australian prime minister, past and present, for a collection called P(oe)Ms.

‘When my collection, An Elegant Young Man came out, I think it virtually sent me around the bend.’

‘In this world of literary agents and commercial prizes that many times just replicate names and books that sell all right, being translated is pretty much a matter of luck: the luck of being successful or the luck of finding almost by chance the right reader in another language.’ J.M. Coetzee in conversation with Argentine writers and translators Mariana Dimópulos and Ariel Magnus.

Introduction Six Degrees from the City is a podcast about writing in Western Sydney, hosted by the writer and critic…

‘Just as there is no one way to write a poem, there is no one way to compose a meme. And, as with poetry, there are a number of forms and types of memes, the conditions of which provide some guidance or instruction regarding form and content. In the same way that the haiku form is typically characterised by a poem composed of 17 syllables (morae), with a seasonal reference (kigo) and juxtaposition of images (kiru); a Doge meme typically comprises an image of a Shiba Inu, and the dog’s internal monologue captioned in multicoloured comic sans. Just as the modes of production for poetry vary (and can be linked with the poem’s form/content, as in a cento) so to do those for memes.’

‘Going back and living in South-West Sydney is very much in keeping with the way I have this very fluid relationship with Bankstown, with the Western Suburbs, I’m part of it but also not part of it too.’