For the longest time I've understood that during war-time people turn to lighter forms of entertainment, to musicals in film, for example, or to escapist books in their reading. However, the truth - of course - is more complex, as I discovered in Trove's digitised newspapers. I was fascinated by how often the matter was, … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: War-time reading tastes, World War 1
Monday musings
Monday musings on Australian literature: Melbourne Centenary literary competitions, 1934
I came across a reference to the 1934/35 Melbourne Centenary literary competitions quite by accident, but they intrigued me so I decided to investigate further. Here's what I found ... Melbourne Centenary According to an article in the La Trobe Journal (no. 34, October 1984), there was much discussion about whether to celebrate the centenary in … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Melbourne Centenary literary competitions, 1934
Monday Musings on Australian literature: Three Top End explorers
Well, folks, I'm back on the grid, but still in the Top End holidaying, so I'm going to make this one as short and sweet as I can. As we traveled through Arnhem Land we learnt about various early 19th century explorers in this region, particularly Phillip Parker King (who makes an appearance, if I … Continue reading Monday Musings on Australian literature: Three Top End explorers
Monday musings on Australian literature: New Territory 2018
Last year, some of you will remember, I was a mentor for the ACT Writers' Centre ACT Lit-bloggers of the future program. It was great fun, and I really enjoyed working with Angharad and Emma over the six-months the program lasted. I wrote a couple of posts about the program, but if you'd like to … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: New Territory 2018
Monday musings on Australian literature: VerityLa
I've mentioned the literary blog-cum-journal, VerityLa, a few times before here, partly because one of its founders is local writer, Nigel Featherstone. For those of you who haven't come across it, however, it is, in its own words, "an on-line, no-way-for-profit, creative arts journal, publishing short fiction and poetry, cultural comment, photomedia, reviews, and interviews." I … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: VerityLa
Monday musings on Australian literature: Grace Gibson
Today's post was inspired by a tweet, yesterday, from the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB). Using the hashtag #OTD (On This Day), they promoted their entry on Grace Gibson who was born on 17 June (in 1905.) Not only was that tweet a blast from my working-life past, but it also introduced an aspect of … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Grace Gibson
Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian literature in Australian schools
As I was trawling my little collection of ideas for Monday Musings, I lit upon a paper by the late educator Annette Patterson titled "Australian literature: culture, identity and English teaching". Bingo! I had my answer, because it will contribute to a discussion I took part in on Guy Savage's His futile preoccuptions blog. The … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian literature in Australian schools
Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian ghostwriters
If you've read my blog recently, you'll know exactly what inspired this post. Yes, Richard Flanagan's novel First person (my review), which was inspired by his experience of ghostwriting Australian fraudster John Friedrich's memoir. The book was called Codename Iago. You probably all know what a ghostwriter is, but just to make sure, here's the … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian ghostwriters
Monday musings on Australian literature: Reconciliation Day in Canberra
Today, 28 May 2018, we in Canberra celebrated our inaugural Reconciliation Day Public Holiday. We are the first jurisdiction in Australia to have such a public holiday*. From this year, this day will be held on the first Monday after 27 May or on the 27th if it is a Monday - the 27th being … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Reconciliation Day in Canberra
Monday musings on Australian literature: Blaming the Americans
Rummaging through my little folder of papers and ideas for Monday Musings posts, I found a 2014 article from The Conversation titled "The Americans are destroying the English language - or are they?" If you are a non-American English-speaker you probably know exactly what this is about, because we non-American English-speakers love to get on … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Blaming the Americans
Whispering Gums 