Vale @kudelka.bsky.social

Jon Kudelka, much-loved Australian political cartoonist, dies aged 53

As the mother of a daughter whose multiple disabilities led to her having to leave her physical high school at 15 to do distance education, I hate to think how isolated she would have been had she not had access to social media. It probably contributed to her still being alive.

Please sign my petition to start an Autumn Olympics where all events empty into a pile of delightful leaves and whatnot.

The Wright Museums Instagram page is HILARIOUS. Think The Office but it's the staff at a Museum for Black History. Better believe this is on my list of places to visit. Gentle Spades "I'm a veteran"

‘Ignazio Silone, a writer about Italian fascism wrote a book called A School for Dictators, and his line is: “fascism is a counter-revolution to a revolution that never took place”.’ 🔥 podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/v...

And it's only February...

"In 2026, Australian literary festivals are under threat from the culture wars, climate risks, new hate speech laws and ongoing funding scarcity." All true. And also - maybe - at risk from their proliferation. #auslit

It'll be fascinating to see how Australia's first Poet Laureate acts, speaks and writes in fractured times for human rights, free speech, principled dissent, the meaning of social cohesion, & the writing industry. Note the carefully crafted selection process. #auslit creative.gov.au/investments-...

What's the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Japanese meal??

Nonfiction publishers: why not try including the phrase "making of the modern world" in your subtitle?

Laughs bitterly in Australian ...

Journalists, please remember that repeating obviously false statements is not balance or fairness. It is actively participating in deception.

The part of the Australian Music World that we love has a hole in its heart today. Rob Hirst had kindness, substance, drive and ability. Songwriter, Drummer, backing vocalist extraordinaire, entertainer, agitator. Condolences to all those feeling this loss.

So the existential threat posed to humanity by continuing to burn fossil fuels is just not a problem any more? Guess we can all just chill out or something.

Full survey results show American public have high levels of confidence in scientists while revealing some partisan differences (including on how to fund science), but statements asserting lost trust should be read instead as intentional efforts to degrade trust. www.pewresearch.org/science/2026...

Well I think we can all agree that it’s been another big week for social cohesion .

Seemed like a good day for my new shirt

Weird prize takes a weird turn. #Nobel

What we need is a Festival of Hot Takes.

Swiss author Erich von Däniken died last week, aged 90 years. In 2021, I wrote about his 'Chariots of the Gods', among other things, for @lithub.com.web.brid.gy: lithub.com/on-ancient-a...

maybe even a literary magazine

This is an excellent week to go read a book. #Radelaide

⁉️The ARC has delayed outcomes of ALL grants 1–4 months & increased scheduled outcome windows from 2 weeks to 3 months! This reverses 4 years of progress in providing greater certainty & ability to plan for researchers, their families & unis. Their excuse? Security checks under new ARC legislation👇

Translation: we cannot keep up

Delighted to have received a grant from a submerging writers foundation, which supports mid-career authors while they age, procrastinate and feel their early promise ebb away. Grants like this are essential to the production of unmarketable work of limited appeal.

Having Grok “apologise” for creating CSAM is like punching someone in the face and then having the Sooty puppet on your fist apologise.

I don't recall off hand who made the point about AI being, more than anything else, a machine for displacing responsibility. That increasingly looks like its most reliable feature

The 29 Best (Old) Books We Read in 2025

My cartoon in this weeks @newyorker.com

Hey, props to writers who got literally anything done this year.

A manuscript isn't ready to be shown to a potential publisher until you've done a thorough edit, double-checked your facts, abandoned your family, shunned all friendships, and offered a suitable blood sacrifice to the demon librarians that curate the Library of Forgotten Authors

2005 me: I love literary journalism, I love writers who bare their souls 2025 me: Stop stop oh my god please stop

🎧 Want to hear what the world thinks of your research? Altmetric has added a new attention source: Podcasts! 🎙️ 🌐 Altmetric is the first in the world to include podcasts as a measure of #ResearchImpact. 🔗 Discover more in our announcement: https://ow.ly/f3Eo50XbFBR

#BREAKING 🚨 Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report into mutual obligations issues. Fake quotes from Federal Court case that ended Robodebt deleted from new report in Friday DEWR dump. 📰 AFR ✍️ @paulkarp.bsky.social ✍️ @edmundtadros.bsky.social 🗣️ @chrisrudge.bsky.social

It felt like Australian publishing was shrinking with mergers and the shock closure of Meanjin - waiting to see the full story behind that! But there's a few new players bring fresh energy and new books in recent months. With thanks to @jocaseau.bsky.social for excellent editing.

What does this even mean

The report that Melbourne University Publishing will stop publishing the lit mag #Meanjin is bad news for readers, writers, thinkers, dreamers, doers, publishers, and policymakers - and for citizens who have never heard of or read Meanjin. #Auslit #litmags www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...

Mainstream publishers persist in bringing out books full of 'what I reckon' and 'my friend sells spirulina in fancy bottles' pretendy-cure wellness influencer/celeb nonsense for everything from menopause to cancer to immune disorders to endometriosis.

For a moment, Winton thought he saw someone dressed as a twenty-something on the verge of uncovering their rural town’s terrible secret, but it was just a student in mufti. theshovel.com.au/2025/08/20/t...

this, from the brain of perfect genius @radiomoderation.bsky.social , whips, as one would expect

it finally happened www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

We've never seen a writers' festival try to impose a code of conduct on speakers before; it's not a thing. However, the weaponising of such codes by all sorts of institutions has been proliferating lately, detrimentally to the public interest.

The Productivity Commission has floated an idea to expand the fair use provision, which would make the kind of scraping AI companies do to train ChatGPT et al legal. Authors and other creatives are rightly outraged. NB: this isn't the first time the PC has come for book publishing.

Congrats to the editorial and design team at Southern Cross University for the relaunch of the literary magazine Coastlines. I'm very pleased to have some fiction in the new issue, sitting among some fine writing and writers. #litmags #Auslit #Ausfiction coastlinesjournal.com

Nicely said: #academicpublishing mediastudies.hypotheses.org/6850

Creative Australia is advertising for the inaugural director of Writing Australia. This is a time for transformative, systemic, disruptive thinking and change. And new voices. #auslit #CreativeAustralia #WritingAustralia australiacouncil.pulsesoftware.com/Pulse/job/zC...

Private schools spend millions on new buildings, thanks to generous tax deductions. The Govt's own Productivity Commission recommended that the tax deduction for private schools be removed. Our report shows how it creates inequality in our education system: australiainstitute.org.au/report/fundi...

I commented on the present and future of the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Griffith Review: #Auslit #MilesFranklin #GriffithReview www.griffithreview.com/articles/the...