On grief dreams, planting trees, and figuring out how to talk about loss and death with the toddler (w cameo from Grug)

Meanjin 66.1, 2007, ordered in at a regional bookstore and enthusiastically pored over by a baby writer discovering the incredible landscape of Australian literature. Meanjin 82.4, 2023, author copy received when a mid-career writer published a short story, The Station, in her dream journal.

I think we should agree that the explanation proffered yesterday by the MUP board chair for Meanjin’s axing (“purely financial reasons”) is a nonsense. Which begs the question: what was the real reason? This is a scandal.

My novel/novella in progress instinctively seems to have five parts; I’ve just finished drafting part four. Have some vague notions of how it all comes together and I hope I can nail it over the summer once classes are done! It might involve moss, childbirth, a house disappearing into a forest.

Strewth, finished copies of @roffwrites.bsky.social’s debut novel emerge! Out very soon from Adelaide’s Wakefield Press! #HereAreMyDemands

Help give gorgeous Jess a proper celebration of her life 🩵 gofund.me/e6daa029

Gorgeous reading night @ Bibliotheca Bar: Nicholas Jose, Jen Mills, Danielle Clode, Lisa Hannett, Heather Taylor-Johnson, Amelia Walker, Lauren Fuge. What a treat 📖 #StoryandtheSelf

At the IABA (International Auto/Biography Assoc) x ASAL (Assoc. for the Study of Aus Lit) #StoryandtheSelf conf in Adelaide, speaking this morning on rereading Garner’s The Spare Room after life experience (accumulation & loss) & thinking about rereading as a practice in general

To him, music was like breathing. So genuine an artist & a huge inspiration for me. I’ve loved the Beach Boys through all eras of my life. Was so lucky to see the Pet Sounds tour ❤️ www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

‘I rested the breast pump on top of Gender Trouble and pale milk pooled on its cover.’ I love this so much islandmag.com/read/a-natur...

Well, the fight has been lost. Watched these huge old red gums begin to be fed into the wood chipper this morning and sobbed. dandenong.starcommunity.com.au/news/2024-04...

Am reading a recently published Aus narrative nonfiction book in which every piece of dialogue is incorrectly punctuated. All punct. is outside quote marks & if there’s punct. within (like a !) they’ve added an EXTRA FULL STOP on the outside. How does this happen?

The emergency vehicles on the way to the CFA protest was a sight to see this morning! So loud! www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05...

When I became a mum I was already a carer for my own mum (& with my dad already gone) but we’re in a golden period, with her illness progressing slowly & her living close by. Three generations getting to spend time together, mostly walking the dog, snacking & colouring in. Highlight of my weeks ❤️

Kaliane Bradley on The Ministry of Time w Claire Nichols. I loved when she spoke about a novel’s relationship with/representation of time, deepening the time travel chat: you decide ‘what is history, what’s narrative, how your reader will travel through your story’. #mwf2025

Writer as Witness, Evelyn Araluen, Amy McQuire, Hasib Hourani, Micaela Sahhar. Writing in response to complicit (imperial) media, how writing can inform activism & how certain practices & methodologies (especially relational, communal, etc.) can subvert dominant or prescribed norms. Moving. #mwf2025

of *course* on his very last election Antony Green would have all his technology fail him and have only his little notebook to guide him, this is the hero's journey but for psephologists #AusVotes

‘Some of her earnings were spent on riotous living, but Kerry gave a lot of it away without fanfare to those who really needed it: fellow authors down on their luck, impecunious neighbours and, above all, to charities.’ What a legend. Vale, KG.

❤️‍🔥 sunbookshop.com/events/feast...

❗️Authors and illustrators: have your books been used to train AI? Today the Atlantic published a search tool allowing authors to search for their books in the LibGen dataset, which has been used to train Meta's AI system. Search here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Loved this one, JB open.substack.com/pub/aliensid... @birmo.bsky.social

Reading w Penny on the train & a man said, You must spend a fortune on books! I said, They’re from the library. We stock up every week. He said, Libraries still exist? They must be empty, no one knows! I said, Our local is busy! 📚 Strange the parallel worlds we live in. Glad he knows now 😊

'The Australian Society of Authors said Black Inc’s request for its authors to agree to such a broad grant of rights within four days was “outrageous”.' www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

A milestone that must be recorded: P (2 years 3 mo.) requested David Bowie unprompted in the car today *and* listened to a whole song rather than asking to switch back to Billy Joel (her fav) halfway through.

Thrilled to finally be able to reveal the cover of my new book - An Academic Affair, the story of two Anne-and-Gilbert-esque academic rivals who find themselves in a marriage of convenience so they can take advantage of a partner hire clause in the broken jobs market. Pre-order links below! 💙🩷

My fires/grief essay rej from another lit mag this time with ‘It didn’t quite make the cut this round but it was a beautiful read and I’d be happy to see it submitted again in the future’. Keep getting SO close with this one!

Arrived in time for Trans Book Fest to participate in the Protect Trans Youth rally & then saw 4 panels—so much to absorb & ponder. Thanks to the authors for your deep, honest & often hilarious sharing, on minds & bodies, creative practice, political urgency, survival, joy & so much more.

Yo @meanjin.bsky.social are finally here!

Oh. My. God. Just found in the garage. Planet Hollywood Vegas denim jacket from 1995. My parents saved for years for our America trip, our only time o/s as a family, just before Dad started on dialysis. There’s a lot of grief going thru family stuff, but also fun moments like this ❤️ #90snostalgia

Picked up David P. Rando’s On Fiction and Being a Good Animal from @edinburghup.bsky.social at #MLA25 & it’s excellent, challenging me to think beyond human exceptionality through ‘wishful images’ in literature (including Kafka’s Metamorphosis)

I have time off this week & planned to sort lots of things out in the house but so far it’s listening to Juice by Tim Winton, researching worm farms & vibrating with climate anxiety

Yay, Hollen!!!!

Join us! (I'll be in my 2nd year of judging this yr.) Waverley Council invites authors, academics, literary critics & book industry professionals to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to join the Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award Judging Panel haveyoursay.waverley.nsw.gov.au/nibliterarya...

The Wheeler Centre's Hot Desk Fellowships are open for 2025 applicants! BIG RECOMMEND for emerging writers! I was in the first cohort of Fellows in 2012 & I treated it like an office job: went in every day to write the first draft of my first book 'Out of Shape' There's also a $1250 stipend…

Not sure I can quite formulate the thoughts to deal with this. Such a sad, horrific example of how people living with serious disabilities are dependent on a fair, functioning and just community in a climate catastrophe.

Ogden Museum of Southern Art: incredible introduction (for me) to works of the American south, including artists Benny Andrews (Grandmother’s Dinner, 1992, pictured), Clementine Hunter, Baldwin Lee (Mobile, Alabama, 1985, pictured) & many more. Honestly one of the best galleries I’ve visited.

Very nice latte at Mr Wolf cafe & bookstore in New Orleans. Proper strength! ☕️ Starting a thread for my #NOLAbookshoptour 😊

My session at #MLA25 if relevant to anyone: Shaping Transfuturism: Identity, Representation, and Agency in Science Fiction Literature. I’ll be talking abt character resistance through material and transcorporeal agency in recent Aus speculative novels by Claire G. Coleman & Grace Chan

In New Orleans for the MLA Conference, starting my day with cafe au lait and beignets on the Mississippi and a panel on environmental racism and justice in literature and culture ☕️ 📚 #MLA2025

Yayoi Kusama @ NGV is glorious. Bulging silver clothes and furniture, life-affirming pumpkins, a grief chandelier, endless neon ladders, big polka dot energy.

Chris has taken the little cutie out for a few hours so I can write and I am… snacking. 🥨

Could not resist this junior graphic novel from the library, clearly Kafka-inspired.

Wow, I actually got my best books list up before Jan this year (!) open.substack.com/pub/angelame...

I once had a dream about Liam Neeson and developed a weird crush on him after that, anyway I know he said he's not dating anymore and like I'm married and all but if you see him around Footscray you can give him my number creative.vic.gov.au/news/2025/li...

Wholesome times over here 🎄😊

What a beautiful tribute & such a pleasure to discover these details about a writer and person I much admired, was inspired by and was fortunate to meet/interview several times. She will be deeply missed.

Australian-based emerging writers! Griffith Review has opened their emerging voices competition x #writing #writers #auswriting www.griffithreview.com/for-writers/...