It's been a busy year chez Gums and so I've decided to write two highlight posts - one listing some favourite reads, and this one for other blogging and reading highlights. Here, in no particular order, they are ... The challenge to do when you don't do challenges I decided when I started blogging that … Continue reading Highlights of 2012: Blogging and the Reading Life
Fridays with Featherstone, Part 3: Using the Arts and Landscape in fiction
Today, I bring you the third part of Nigel Featherstone's Wet Ink interview with Susan Errington. One of the things that stands out in the two novellas I've read by Featherstone is the way he uses the arts. Even though the title of the first novella, Fall on me, is a direct reference to the … Continue reading Fridays with Featherstone, Part 3: Using the Arts and Landscape in fiction
Thea Astley, Hunting the wild pineapple (Review)
Thea Astley's "Hunting the wild pineapple" is both a short story and the title of a collection of connected short stories (that includes, of course, the title story). Today I am going to write on the short story as it's one of the 16 included in the current Meanjin Tournament of Books - and it … Continue reading Thea Astley, Hunting the wild pineapple (Review)
Humbook Christmas Gift to Stu of Winston’s Dad
I squeezed in at the last moment! What, you ask, did I squeeze into? Well, the Humbook Christmas Gift exchange. This is a virtual gift exchange that Guy Savage (of His Futile Preoccupations) and Emma (of Book Around The Corner) did last year. They enjoyed it so much they decided to invite their blogging friends … Continue reading Humbook Christmas Gift to Stu of Winston’s Dad
Monday Musings on Australian Literature: A challenge or two
Since this week's Monday Musings falls on Christmas Eve I'm departing a little from the intention of this series. In fact, today's post is not about Australian literature at all - though you can make it so if you'd like! Instead, I'm going to suggest a couple of literary challenges that you might like to … Continue reading Monday Musings on Australian Literature: A challenge or two
Fridays with Featherstone, Part 2: Writing about men
Today, as promised last week, I bring you the second part of Nigel Featherstone's Wet Ink interview with Susan Errington. But first, a brief intro. Back in early November, Nigel wrote a guest post for my Monday Musings series on writing about family, on how this is what he finds himself writing about. In this … Continue reading Fridays with Featherstone, Part 2: Writing about men
Monday musings on Australian literature: Last minute Aussie lit shopping ideas
This is not my post on 2012 reading highlights ... that will come at the end of the year ... but, with Christmas just a week away, I thought I'd offer up some Aussie lit suggestions for your lovers-of-literature friends. Some of these may be tricky to find at this short notice - and these … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Last minute Aussie lit shopping ideas
Meanjin’s Tournament of Books 2012, Matches 7-8
With this post, we finish the first round of this year's Tournament of Books, so here goes ... next post will look at Round 2. Match 7: Henry Lawson's "The drover's wife" defeated Cate Kennedy's "Static" Like most Australians I've read Lawson's "The drover's wife". It's probably one of Australia's most anthologised stories so it … Continue reading Meanjin’s Tournament of Books 2012, Matches 7-8
Fridays with Featherstone, Part 1: Thoughts on literary form
What do writer Nigel Featherstone and the now sadly defunct literary magazine Wet Ink have in common? An unpublished interview, that's what! When Nigel approached me, with the agreement of his interviewer Susan Errington, asking whether I would like to run the review on Whispering Gums, I of course said yes - for several reasons. … Continue reading Fridays with Featherstone, Part 1: Thoughts on literary form
Monday musings on Australian Literature: Social micro-story telling on Drabbl.es
Have you heard of a Drabble? Besides Margaret that is? It is, according to Wikipedia, "an extremely short [but complete] work of fiction of exactly one hundred words in length". The concept was developed in the UK science fiction and fan fiction communities in the 1980s, with the word itself coming from a Monty Python … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian Literature: Social micro-story telling on Drabbl.es
