After 20 years, I've been laid off at The Washington Post. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Moving to a more general evolution. Surprising ideas and concrete steps to face the challenges.

Ttranslations of Rilke from The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, by Joanna Lacey and award-winning poet Anita Barrows, that speak to the beauty and mystery present in worlds both seen and unseen, the unknowability of the Divine, union of nature and transcendent podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/e...

Social media trends for 2026 via @lacyphillips.bsky.social @janefriedman.com janefriedman.com/watch-for-th...

The following is a roundup of new publishers and agents announced in 2025—free to all. Want to be notified every week of new publishers and agents? Sign up for my newsletter The Bottom Line (free version works as well as the paid version for this purpose). See comments for sign-up link.

Gabrielle Feather on 100 Things to do now you are collapse aware… open.substack.com/pub/gabriell...

A practical guide for modern commune via Elizabeth Oldfield @elizabetholdfield.bsky.social

@natehagens.bsky.social and psychotherapist and author Francis Weller on grief as ritual, resistance and resilience. youtu.be/UM2sXbmhmao?...

A bit of magic this morning as I stick to my sketch/paint a day practice. A green Fiddler Beetle ambled across my notebook (bottom left hand side). #art #synchronicity #artpractice

A powerful read this morning - “Sometimes a Wild God” by Tom Hirons @hironstom.bsky.social tomhirons.com/poetry/somet... #poetry #poemoftheday

Just another sunset in suburbia.

And for a stunning intro to medieval mystics - imagine Hildegard, Margery Kempe, Francis of Assisi et al over for dinner read Carmel Bendon’s The Mystics Who Came To Dinner @orionbooks.bsky.social #mystics #medieval

The medieval mystics have been coming up a lot for me this week. Im re-reading Dr Carmel Bendon’s fabulous novel w/ historical medieval reference to Julian of Norwich w/ modern day mystery based in Sydney & now @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social article incl.mystic Margery Kempe psyche.co/ideas/get-me...

Meanjin has a highly engaged subscriber base, here and overseas. It gets tonnes of subs every time it opens them (often and for free). It's works are on university reading lists. It's a signal achievement for a writer to appear in its pages. The value lost for the uni (and us) is huge.

Beautiful human and award winning author Richard Flanagan on the power of words and how it can convey love w/ Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art #question7 #writers youtube.com/watch?v=7k5b...

Fabulous podcast w/ Sarah Wilson and Dr Martha Beck on anxiety and other matters open.spotify.com/episode/40fT...

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽Yes worth listening to, and contemplating deeply. However the message of the talk is: society will inevitably collapse, we have no choice, but I’m going to be a nice person when it does, so I’ll be ok… while I: a) starve b) be one of 70% of the global population under tyranny 1/

The Blake Poetry Prize 2025 applications are open. Listen to the winner of 2024 Simone King stunning poem. www.westwords.com.au/the-68th-bla... #poets #poetry

Are you still using Spotify Premium? Cancel your subscription until Spotify stops running ICE ads. There are other streaming options that don’t profit from exploiting artists while recruiting for ICE: indivisible.org/cancel-spoti... #CancelSpotify

If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the U.S. 😱 source: Food and Ag Org of the UN For more information on food waste, check out @paul-west.bsky.social for @sentientmedia.org 🔗 sentientmedia.org/the-climate-...

Book review by @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social on Bee Wilson's new book about kitchen objects and the stories they tell. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/b...

The 2025 Brisbane Writers Festival Address by @dranitaheiss.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/anitahei...

AFOPA urges the president and board of the National Press Club to reconsider their cancellation of #ChrisLynnHedges appearance on 20 October and to honour the commitment they made. #auspol #NPC #media

Author and podcaster Sarah Wilson ‘Can we talk about your silence?’ open.substack.com/pub/sarahwil...

Monument to the Burghers of Calais, 1889, Bronze by Auguste Rodin, Museum Rodin Paris. Remarkable.

Powerful testimony by Dr Terumi Tanaka, who was a 13 years old child living in #Nagazaki in 1945 when the #atomic #bomb destroyed his city. He is now a Chair of #NihonHidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. #BanNuclearWeapons #TPNW www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/o...

Under the rules of war, parties to conflicts cannot use starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This includes depriving them of food, water, or other essentials needed to survive, even if it does not lead to death but causes suffering. Even wars have limits. #IHL

In the face of egregious and widespread violations of international humanitarian law in conflicts around the world, we need to act. Leaders of 🇿🇦🇧🇷🇨🇳🇫🇷🇯🇴🇰🇿 together with @ICRC urge States and the international community to uphold the #GenevaConevntions www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-fo...

You can find information on the Global Initiative to galvanise political commitment for #IHL at www.upholdhumanityinwar.org/documentation, including ✅ Workstreams ✅ Next events and consultations ✅ Statements from states in previous consultations

Do the hard thing … AI is making you genuinely stupid. open.substack.com/pub/pluri/p/...

@irinadumitrescu.bsky.social on the liberating potential of trash and the creative process. #innercritic #recycle #art . open.substack.com/pub/irinadum...

"In the name of 'fighting antisemitism', the Trump administration is publicly making an example out of arguably the most famous Jewish public intellectual in the country today."

“If the art world is serious about equity, it has to stop equating emergence with youth and start building structures that reflect the multiplicity of artistic timelines.” Damien Davis @hyperallergic.com hyperallergic.com/1042641/when... #emergingartists

Voting for the Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award closes today. There are 8 finalists, please support any one of the authors. I have a few friends in that list, so I can't tell you who I voted for (NO it was not for myself). www.slq.qld.gov.au/queensland-l...

Treaty: This is how we get over it @mrdtjames.bsky.social on "Victoria has tabled a treaty the first in the nation's history " firstpeoplesvic.org/reports-reso... "This treaty is not the end of the story but the beginning of a new era ... " open.substack.com/pub/thespenc...

New: A deep dive with some alarming new revelations on the silencing of one of the few remaining independent progressive voices in Australian media. Who killed Meanjin?

Looking up to clouds … and checking to see if @cloudappsoc.bsky.social on @bsky.app #cloudappreciation

The court is erasing Banksy's mural just like it's erasing our right to protest It only took 48 hours for the court to scrub out a Banksy showing a judge striking down a protester with his gavel Silencing a work of art about silencing protest? Maybe it was a little too close to home

‘You and I are Earth’ Inscribed earthenware plate via @londonmuseum.bsky.social Post-Medieval — 1661; 17th century substack.com/@thesynchron...

“Firmament.” [Jeu de tarot de fantaisie “égyptien” à enseignes italiennes, dit “Grand Etteilla”, c.1850–1875] @gallicabnf.bsky.social gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b...

An Australian billionaire (who loves Elon Musk of course) wants to destroy a world beneath the oceans before we even come close to understanding it. There are no limits to this ultra capitalist strip mining of our one and only planet.

Jacinta Parsons on the fall of another literary institution- Meanjin.

On Vernon Ah Kee’s statement on “misconceptions circulating around Hoda Afshar’s award winning image for the 2025 Australian National Portrait Gallery prize. “Firstly, I wish to make clear that this is an Aboriginal led project. substack.com/@thesynchron... #art #photography

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2025 Winner Untitled #01 (from the series Code Black/Riot), 2024 Hoda Afshar Sherry Quiambao received the First Time Finalist Award, and George Fetting won the Art Handlers' Award. #photography #photocontest www.portrait.gov.au/npppphoto/10...

My essay on AI and writing is up on Island Mag online islandmag.com/read/extinct...

Australian writers, please consider signing this open letter to the Vice Chancellor of Melbourne University regarding the decision to close Meanjin Quarterly down openletter.earth/an-open-lett...

Literary journal Meanjin to close after 85 years of publishing Meanjin, a mainstay of Australia’s cultural landscape and the nation’s second-oldest literary publication, is shuttering after Melbourne University Publishing decided to cease financial support. www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...