Canberra-based author Kathryn Hind‘s debut novel Hitch was published in June this year. The inaugural winner of the Penguin Literary Prize, Hitch tells the story of Amelia, a young woman of indeterminate age, who is hitchhiking her way to Melbourne. Her journey is an emotional one as well as a physical one, and throughout the book, there…
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The year is 1926, and American model Lee Miller has arrived in Paris. Leaving behind a successful career at Vogue, she’s ready to take her place behind the camera, rather than in front of it. After convincing surrealist Man Ray to take her on as his assistant, she begins her education, but soon finds herself…
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Rohan Wilson’s latest novel, Daughter of Bad Times is a novel with an extremely global outlook, but this may just be its problem. The novel follows two protagonists, Rin Braden and Yamaan Ali Umair, two lovers from very different circumstances. Rin is the daughter of Alessandra Braden, the CEO of Cabey-Yasuda Corrections, a company which owns…
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Brisbane based writer Melissa Lucashenko has been awarded the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel Too Much Lip, beating out five other shortlisted works to the $60,000 prize. Lucashenko’s win makes her the third Indigenous author to take home the prize, alongside past winners Kim Scott and Alexis Wright. Published by UQP, Too Much Lip follows…
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The Miles Franklin Literary Award will be announced later today, and we’re slipping one last nominee interview in before the big reveal! This time, we’re chatting to Jennifer Mills, author of Dyschronia! Congratulations on making the Miles Franklin shortlist! What was it like to hear the news? Thank you! It was and is wonderful: to feel…
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The town that makes up the main setting of Tony Birch’s new novel The White Girl is a fictional one, but it could have been anywhere in Australia. The novel tells the story of Odette Brown, an Indigenous woman who was raised on the mission in Deane separated from her family, and in particular her father. She lives on…
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Author Rodney Hall is a two time Miles Franklin winner, and his latest book, A Stolen Season, has seen him snap up a third nomination this year. We caught up with him for a quickfire interview, ahead of the announcement of the winner next week! First of all, congratulations on the nomination! What was it…
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We’re continuing our series of interviews with Miles Franklin nominees! With the winner announcement just around the corner, it’s now the the turn of Gregory Day, author of A Sand Archive! Congratulations on making the Miles Franklin shortlist! What was it like to hear the news? As you might imagine it felt satisfying for my work…
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Michael Mohammed Ahmad is an Arab-Australian writer, editor and teacher. He is also the founder and director of Sweatshop, a literary arts collective based in Western Sydney that helps develop work by culturally diverse writers. He is also the award winning author of The Tribe and his most recent work, The Lebs, which has been…
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The longlist for the 2019 Booker Prize is out, but readers will have to wait a little while to pick up copies of a few of the contenders, with books such as The Testaments not due out until September 2019. This list, hotly anticipated by bibliophiles everywhere, is notoriously difficult to predict, and 2019 is…
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Pioneering French filmmaker Claude Ballard has lived at the Hotel Knickerbocker for almost half a century. It’s a quiet existence, by Hollywood hotel standards at least, and Claude fills his days taking photographs and keeping an eye on the hotel’s more vulnerable residents. But when an enthusiastic young film student arrives, keen to discover the…
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A suburban family finds a prehistoric egg. A lonely woman aids a fallen angel. An American woman plots to take the Parisian honey industry by storm. These are just a few of the moments captured in Bindy Pritchard‘s stunning short story collection Fabulous Lives. Curious, yet always relatable, Pritchard’s vignettes are filled with the sort of…
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After a terrifying clash with the enemy in the Havennesse mountains, our gang of rebels and Valian warriors have headed back to Queen Eydis’ castle to regroup and plan for the war ahead. But with Bleak’s head still reeling from revelations about her past, and the captive they planned to use as leverage against Ines…
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Author Helen Scheuerer is just a couple of weeks away from wrapping up her Amazon best selling series The Oremere Chronicles. With War of Mist due out on July 25th, we caught up with her to find out as much as we could about the epic finale! So, we’re just a few weeks out from the…
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The year is 1930. With talkies on the rise, the age of silent cinema is coming to a close, and it seems there’s someone on the Berlin streets who’s not quite ready to let it go. Cinema starlets are showing up dead at an alarming rate and, as if Inspector Gereon Rath doesn’t already have…
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Six Australian writers have been shortlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Award at a ceremony held this evening at the State Library of NSW. Among those shortlisted are debut authors, Michael Mohammed Ahmad (The Lebs) and Jennifer Mills (Dyschronia), and two-time Miles Franklin award winner, Rodney Hall (A Stolen Season). Gail Jones, whose book The Death of Noah…
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In October 2017 when the hashtag #MeToo went viral, a lot of the popularity was chalked up to some rich, white celebrities speaking out. What these media reports failed to acknowledge however was that the movement’s true founder was Tarana Burke. This new anthology, #MeToo: Stories from the Australian Movement, is broadens #MeToo’s scope, whilst…
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The body count is high in Amanda O’Callaghan’s debut short story collection, This Taste for Silence. From the very first story, death, murder and unexplained disappearances emerge as a dominant theme in this collection which has been described by Ryan O’Neill as ‘utterly haunting.’ Brisbane-based author O’Callaghan is an internationally acclaimed writer of short (and very…
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Jocelyn Moorhouse knows how to spin a great yarn. The Dressmaker director has had a rich career in film, and this forms part of her memoir, Unconditional Love. This book looks at her brilliant career, including her collaborations with filmmaker husband, PJ Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding). But, Moorhouse’s most intriguing chapters are about her experiences with…
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Omar Sakr’s The Lost Arabs was one of my most anticipated new releases for the year. It has more than lived up to expectations, which isn’t always the case. It’s intimate, vibrant, beautifully composed and engages creatively and powerfully with a whole host of concerns and themes intrinsic to understanding the modern world. The Lost…
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Earlier this month saw the publication of Elizabeth Kuiper’s debut novel Little Stones. The novel, which draws upon Kuiper’s own childhood experiences, follows the story of Hannah, a young white Zimbabwean as she navigates everyday life in a country under the control of Robert Mugabe. Following the novel’s release we sat down with Elizabeth to…
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Little Stones might be the debut novel from Australian writer Elizabeth Kuiper, but it won’t be her last. The novel, of which an early version was long listed for the Richell Prize, published in Award Winning Australian Writing and received the Express Media Prize for the best work of fiction, marks the arrival of a new voice in Australian writing. One…
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It has today been announced that Tayari Jones’ novel An American Marriage has won the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction, taking home the £30,000 prize money. Endorsed by both President Obama and Oprah Winfrey, An American Marriage, Jones’ fourth novel, follows the devastating aftermath of a young African-American man’s incarceration following a wrongful accusation of…
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ABIA Book of the Year winner Boy Swallows Universe heads up a ten-strong list of contenders for the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award. Established in 1957 with funds from an unexpected bequest from the My Brilliant Career author, Miles Franklin‘s will stipulated that: “[the] prize shall be awarded for the Novel for the year which is of…
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I’ll have what she’s having. Or will I? When it comes to “Happy Ever After” many of us believe we all want the same things. But Paul Dolan’s latest book, Happy Ever After, challenges us to think otherwise. He does this with some myth-busting and some clear-eyed, intellectual arguments. Paul Dolan, as Professor of Behavioural Science…
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The first teaser trailer for the forthcoming TV adaptation of His Dark Materials has been released out into the world, and we for one are excited! Set for release later in the year, the BBC and HBO co-production has amassed a sterling cast of small screen and big screen talent. Logan actress Dafne Keen has…
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Tonight the best and brightest of Australian publishing descended on Sydney and the Grand Ballroom of the International Convention Centre for the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards – the Australian equivalent of the Oscars for the bookishly inclined. If you’ve been even vaguely following the Australian literary world over the last twelve months then the…
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Practice. Journalism, Essays and Criticism collects and distills the writings of journalist Guy Rundle. An intricate, clever yet funny, and mostly convincing take on all the big politicians, and some sordid Americans along the way, Practice is compiled from his work for Crikey, and various magazines and newspapers, over the years. Opinions on topics ranging…
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Meg Keneally may have a literary giant for a father, but her career speaks for itself. Beginning her working life as Junior Public Affairs Officer at the Australian Consulate-General in New York, she has worked as a sub-editor and freelance features writer in Dublin, as a journalist at the Daily Telegraph in Australia, as a talkback…
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Some people read books to escape their lives. For other readers, they want to consume a story that mirrors their own. Author, Melina Marchetta certainly fits into the latter camp. Her latest novel – the third in her Inner West trilogy, set in the suburbs of Sydney – is a close examination of the issues…
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