Learning from Garlic: My Name is Lucy Barton   When I was twenty-one, that giant of literary criticism, Roland Barthes, helped me divide the books on my shelf in a new way: into those that are writerly, and those that are readerly. He did so via an undergraduate literary theory course, which opened my eyes to how language works and allowed me to grasp some of the meanings of Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, for which I will forever be grateful. I say ‘grasp some’, because Nelson’s text contains the potential for a multitude of readings and I am only equipped […]

It’s day one of a new storytelling project in the Darwin prison and the woman in front of me is gesturing at the thin shelf of books in front of us. Why do the men get to read true crime and all we get is this romantic shit? I look at the shelf. The tatty novel closest to us has a Mills and Boon style cover with a man and a woman embracing. We know this story. It’s a narrative we’ve all read. I’m relieved when another woman speaks up. What we need round here is some real stories she […]

I have a friend who is a dancer. I remember her talking about what it was like to go back to dancing after having a child. It felt completely different, she said. Being in her body felt different, physically and emotionally. I don’t know if there is any similarity between that and what I am experiencing now, but since writing my first novel my reading life has changed. I am finding myself trying to remember how I used to read. I birthed a book and now reading feels different. A while ago I found a couple of plastic crates in […]

Leesa Cross-Smith writes about love like no-one else. Cross-Smith is the co-editor of WhiskeyPaper, a leading online flash fiction journal in the US. Her first book, a collection of flash fiction and short stories, Every Kiss a War, is bliss and made me swoon, over and over. Her debut novel, Whiskey & Ribbons, shows Cross-Smith is a master. Whiskey & Ribbons is the story of a young black woman, Evangeline (Evi), in present day Louisville, United States, following the death of her husband, Eamon. Evi was widowed just prior to the birth of their baby, Noah. The story is told […]

I must admit, I usually avoid answering queries about what I’m reading. It seems a question so embroiled in judgement. Is what I read a judgment of what I do not? Will my taste as a writer be judged by my choice—is it too populist, too literary, too genre? Part of me knows that this is absurd, a fear brought on by imposter syndrome or some other unnamed paranoid condition that infects those who write. Even so, the self-consciousness is there and hard to shake. The reality is that I rarely choose my own list anymore—especially where fiction is concerned. […]

I’ve been reading the face of the woman on her knees on Platform Four with her shopping bags spilled around her like a sandcastle ruined by the tide. I’ve been reading the uncertain angle of her head as she gazes into space, blonde hair spilling loose, mouth slack and smeared red. I’ve been reading her enormously vacant eyes: some small madness at the gates. Or perhaps she can see some larger madness approaching that we can’t. Perhaps it’s the rising sea. I’ve been reading a draft of a musical novel by Kirsten Krauth which pulses and roars with the sound […]

There are three digital prints that hang in my house that I am particularly attached to. I commissioned them from a talented friend of mine when I got a promotion a few years ago, and they are the first pieces of art I spent any real money on. Each is a quote about or from literature that I love, designed in lush, swirling typeface, with beautiful colours surrounding the words. There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind, from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, is one. I chose […]

There’s a fairly high chance you’ve never heard of the Public Record Office Victoria, the State Government of Victoria’s archives. In keeping with its location in the industrial, unfashionable end of North Melbourne, it’s the poor cousin of Victoria’s major arts institutions. And though lacking in trendy allure, skilfully channelled for instance by the recent Triennial Extra night festival held at National Gallery of Victoria or the studious splendour of the dome of the State Library, there’s reason enough to become better acquainted with the archives’ rich collection. At least in size it’s no shirking violet; the collection extends to […]

One of the most interesting books I’ve come across recently, or one I’ve thought about the most, is one that only has small blocks of text every few pages—Purism in Concept, Form and Materials: The Pioneering Works of Hermann Rosa by Martin Bruhin. This book shows and discusses the houses and apartments that Rosa and his family lived in and built or drastically modified largely by hand during the 50s and 60s. Rosa was a German sculptor, and the book is fascinating for a number of reasons. Firstly, we get small narrative-like snippets of information about the life of the […]

Call of the Reed Warbler—Charles Massy Occasionally, too rarely, a book falls into your hands that sets you back on your heels, and suddenly in your mind lights are flashing and bells are ringing. Alarm bells and hallelujah bells. The voice is not strident, but a lyrical, humble and learned tone, and, as I discovered, a voice with an unmistakable Aussie twang and slow drawl of a thoughtful farmer. Charles (Charlie) Massy is a fifth-generation farmer from the Monaro. He is also an academic attached to the ANU, having returned to university in his late fifties a few years back, […]

J.G. Ballard (2009) The Complete Short Stories of J.G. Ballard, 1st American Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, New York. 978 0 393 07262 4 (hardback). I went on a road trip through country Victoria last month. In the hamlet of Yarck in the Goulburn Valley, I happened upon a wonderful cottage bookstore called Books at Yarck. It is pretty much every booklover’s wet dream. There is a fine section of literature, an excellent choice of Australiana and some very tasty non-fiction. There is also a wood stove (not in use in February), and a couch. Oh dear. I promised Pip […]

I wish I was reading something fancier right now. Something more ‘high’ culture. Something with literary cred and novelistic hoity-toit. Something that would make you—my curious analytical reader—raise your eyebrows, whistle discretely under your breath and exclaim, somewhat dramatically, ‘my stars, she is but an enlightened dame!’ I could lie. I could pretend I am reading one of the many tomes on the ‘to read’ pile that literally constitutes my bedside table. Something like The Power by Naomi Alderman or Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey or the new Zadie Smith or the old Hilary Mantel. Or something I’ve read […]