NOCK LOOSE out now

the barber has given my 80yo father a scene kid mullet

I think this is better than dessicated coconut

Desperate to extract a smidge of humour from this extremely grim (and accurate) analysis? This description of Johnny Howard is perfect.

I wrote about Bondi for @slate.com slate.com/news-and-pol...

at the airport watching returning FIFOs being greeted home by their goth girl teen brides

NOCK LOOSE made Guardian Australia’s top Australian books of 2025 list. Maybe now those lit agents will think I’m worth their time?

I'm old enough to remember when Pauline Hanson announced she was moving to the UK then, after spending 10 weeks in Europe, abandoned her plans because she thought Britain had been ruined by immigrants. (this was 2010)

it’s too nice a day to be inside writing about Andrew Hastie

a Pavlouvian reaponse

NOCK LOOSE made Guardian Australia’s top Australian books of 2025 list. Maybe now those lit agents will think I’m worth their time?

Excellent

the coolest feature of apple glass is how hot and slow it makes my iPhone

Magnificent: "As I write, Australia’s mainstream journalists—many of whom rank among the dumbest on Earth—are riling up great dramas and screeds in a tone and style that is distinctly American, which is to say, worrying."

I wrote about Bondi for @slate.com slate.com/news-and-pol...

Melbourne University Publishing said it closed Meanjin for “purely financial reasons”. But why did the university rebuff the many offers from parties trying to save the magazine?

Australia is one of the few countries in the world where taxpayers subsidise non-government schools. As more students shift to the private system, the cost to taxpayers continues to escalate. satpa.pe/brciFgI

Yo La Tengo, “Gimme Some Money” 12/15/25. Bowery Ballroom

timeline cleanse: I am compelled to share this photo of me butt naked playing what I’m 99% certain is the classic RTS ‘Total Annihilation Kingdoms’ on my dad’s work laptop (he never worked out how to use it) circa 1997. My new(est) novel is this energy.

Why is this tiny gesture so funny

seeing Netanyahu smugly use the dead at Bondi to further justify Israel’s genocide perhaps one of the more evil things I’ve heard in my life

Sussan Ley, touting the Antisemitism Envoy’s report, demanding that it be immediately implemented. The plan has been emphatically rejected by the Australian Human Rights Institute, Amnesty Internatjonal and a coalition of 9 Jewish groups.

Sussan Ley immediately trying to score points of the back of mass murder is one of the most repulsive things I’ve ever seen an Australian politician do. Thank god she’s already consigned to the dustbin of history because she’s not fit to lead squat.

this is the happiest day of all the worst people in this country’s life. They are licking their lips.

things are about to get so bad

how it felt watching Elle Fanning in Sentimental Value

he looks like Mickey Rourke

another banger episode of The Battler is out now !!!

how it feels whenever I’m made to read first dog on the moon

George Christensen's group chats going quiet as soon as the social media ban for under 16s comes in...it breaks your heart

I really wish NOCK LOOSE was entered into one of Australia’s biggest lit awards but it wasn’t - oh well!

Mort de Martin Parr : God save the kitsch. C'est la une de Libération lundi. Connu dans le monde entier pour son regard ironique et coloré sur la société anglaise, le photographe est mort à 73 ans.

thinking about how different my life would be if I got paid a living wage for the articles i write. unfortunately it is a rotten industry, and I have a pretty pissweak union. ah well!

too many leftists talk like they are explaining the rules to a tedious board game

a small-mid sized Australian publisher should put out no more than 6 books a year, 10 if you’ve got a mix of stuff.

taking suggestions for US and UK based publishers who you reckon would dig NOCK LOOSE. hmu if you have any ideas!

I think the most consistent through line in Australian literature since day dot is that it is dull/boring (in form, style, and content), and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.

Drone art is spiritually Israeli

Way to save OzLit: publish 80% less books and 5 year moratorium on YA, “middle grade” (??), and crime fiction

If only the Americans could find a way of tagging their posts so we could filter them out of our feeds. Let’s say a #hashtag? www.gawkerarchives.com/culture/i-sh...

can not think of a better way to depict this human shrug

in Wicked 3: Green Girls Can't Melt, the cast are going to be literal skeletons

"ABC Chair" is a kind of make-a-wish job for Australian media boomers who the industry is trying to put out to pasture (the compromise being a nice office where they can dribble on themselves in peace)

why do so many bad Australian books get so much marketing??? (I know the answer, but still!!!)

another rave review of NOCK LOOSE, this time in the final ever edition of Meanjin. see replies for my full statement haha

go out and buy the final every issue of Meanjin (which may or may not contain a rave review of the greatest Australian novel of all time...NOCK LOOSE)

i'm in a tricky position: i do not condone Pauline Hanson's terrible racism, but I would pay serious bucks to never have to see her horrid mug again. hmm....!

wrote about knights etc for The Guardian. But NOCK LOOSE ! www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

This year I stood among 25,000 non-conforming, neurodiverse, LGBTQIA+, multicultural, HAPPY people, and recognised my people. @cormacmccafe.bsky.social gets it. “Everyone welcomed me with the joke that ‘It’s cheaper than therapy.’"