Monday musings on Australian literature: ConSYDeration, and some poetry

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Back in March, I wrote a Monday Musings on the Blake Poetry Prize, which is a poetry prize managed by the Liverpool Powerhouse in conjunction with WestWords. WestWords is one active organisation, and is clearly good at finding partners to further its aims. Based in Parramatta in Western Sydney, the WestWords Centre for Writing describes … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: ConSYDeration, and some poetry

Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Shortlist 2026, announced

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The shortlists for this year's Prime Minister's Literary Award were announced today, as I was driving back from Melbourne. Creative Australia's page for the announcement says they received "a remarkable 673 entries across six literary categories: fiction, non-fiction, young adult literature, children’s literature, poetry, and Australian history", which is exactly what they said last year, … Continue reading Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Shortlist 2026, announced

Monday musings on Australian literature: on 1926: 1, First Nations language and literature

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In 2022, I started a Monday Musings sub-series in which I shared news about Australian literature from a century ago. I wrote several posts for the sub-series in the first couple of years, but fewer in the last couple of years. This is not because I lost interest, but because the issues started to repeat … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: on 1926: 1, First Nations language and literature

Corey Tutt and Irma Gold, with Jessica Tedim, Come home Bigibila (#BookReview)

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The recently published children's picture book, Come home Bigibila, is a gorgeous book for several reasons, but the most important of these is that it's a good read. If it weren't that, the other reasons would fade away! So, let's start there. Come home Bigibila tells the story of Bigibila, a baby echidna who is … Continue reading Corey Tutt and Irma Gold, with Jessica Tedim, Come home Bigibila (#BookReview)

Monday musings on Australian literature: Modern social novel

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In my recent post on Alan Fyfe's novel The cross thieves I described it as a modern social realist novel and tagged it as a social problem novel. Wikipedia calls these novels Social novels (defining social realism as primarily an art movement). Whatever we call them, I think you know what I mean. However, for … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Modern social novel

Shaun Micallef, De’Ath takes a holiday (#BookReview)

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This book is bonkers, but that's mainly its point of course. It has other points too, and I'll get to those, but first I'll introduce it more formally. De'Ath takes a holiday is billed by its author, Australian comedian and satirist Shaun Micallef, as "the origin story of the first real vampyre (not Dracula)", which … Continue reading Shaun Micallef, De’Ath takes a holiday (#BookReview)

Monday musings on Australia literature: Audiobook reading in Australia

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Early this month, the Sydney Morning Herald's Jason Steger mentioned, in his weekly email, a recent survey into Australian audiobook listeners. It was also reported by the Australia Reads* website. This survey was conducted by the Australian National University (ANU), but Australia Reads also shares the findings of a second report, Creative Australia's 2026 and … Continue reading Monday musings on Australia literature: Audiobook reading in Australia