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In yesterday’s Age, Michelle Griffin wrote a passionate plea for why we should be exposing teens to more ‘dirty books’. She says that in an age where teens can easily access actual porn over the internet and formal sex education emphasises disease and danger (and is often awkwardly… read more
Ewan Morrison is famous for last year’s bleak Edinburgh Festival address diagnosing the publishing industry as in ‘terminal decline’.
Yesterday he tapped into the zeitgeist again, with a Guardian article warning of the fall-out for writers and publishers when the ‘self-e-publishing… read more
It’s always nice to see Australian creators gain attention and accolades overseas – even more so when they hail from Melbourne. And when they’re written up in a lauded international publication for a book about Melbourne … well, that’s impressive.
Stephen Banham’s Characters: Cultural… read more
The underrepresentation of women writers was one of the big topics of 2011. Australian novelist Kirsten Tranter wrote about it for us on International Women’s Day (8 March) last year, pointing out the skewed gender balance in Australian literary coverage. Presciently, she also argued… read more
Freedom of speech – and freedom from persecution for writers, in particular – has often been a subject for The Wheeler Centre’s events and articles.
This week, Salman Rushdie, one of the world’s most famous persecuted writers, had to cancel his appearance (then the video session that was… read more
Portable patriotism. (Source: Stephen Barnett/Flickr)
Today, ideas of national identity, patriotism, community and equity come to the fore in the Australian imagination (sharing real estate with flags and barbeques, perhaps). Drawing on events… read more
Earlier this week, we tweeted the news that Penguin’s general publishing department is now accepting unsolicited manuscripts, in a new initiative titled, ‘The Monthly Catch’. Submissions are restricted to the first week (1-7) of every month, starting on 1 February.
It’s been six years or m… read more
If you’ve been reading the Fairfax press (or surfing social media) recently, you’re probably familiar with the debate about writer and activist Melinda Tankard Reist – and whether she has the right to call herself a feminist.
Tankard Reist is the author of two books by Melbourne feminist p… read more
In a nice departure from the traditional Australia Day focus on flags and sporting heroes, The Sunday Age has marked the lead-up to the occasion with an editorial decrying our ‘tendency to anti-intellectualism’.
It lamented the fact that Australia’s ‘great writers, artists, soldiers… read more
Emerging Writers' Festival director and avid traveller Lisa Dempster reports on the growth of contemporary literary culture within and around the Sharjah International Book Fair, which in 2011 celebrated its thirtieth anniversary.
The Sharjah International Book Fair takes place over ten… read more
When Captain Cat beseeched his deceased lover Rosie Probert to “let me shipwreck in your thighs” in Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, we truly doubt he meant anything resembling the fate of the Costa Concordia cruiseship which ran aground on 13 January. The disaster has claimed 11 lives so f… read more
Today, lazy music writers and smartphone-toting trivia cheats can commiserate over a common problem: Wikipedia has blackened the English-language version of its encyclopaedia for 24 hours.
The action is part of a wider campaign against two controversial bills being considered in the US &ndash… read more
Some time ago, we reported on a tiny phone booth library located in Somerset, England. We even pondered whether it may be the world’s smallest. But it seems the field is thicker with competition than one might first think. In the US, Portland writers and ‘Street Librarians’ Laura Moulton … read more
Earlier this week, anti-porn activist Melinda Tankard Reist sought legal advice from a defamation lawyer after a blogger labelled her a “fundamentalist Christian”, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. ‘'Why does being a blogger exempt you from the laws of defamation?’‘ she questioned.
While … read more
David Nichols concludes his series on urban liveability with a visit to Baltimore.
Liveability is a lot about perspective. Melbourne may well be a terribly liveable city from some points of view; a glib reading might even suggest it’s a better place to be homeless than, say, Anchorage… read more
On the liveability trail, our intrepid scout David Nichols finds himself nestled amongst dogs, babies and bagels in the biggest smoke of all.
New York
New York is like some kind of enormous share house, with 2.3 degrees of separation and no way of getting away from other people. Step into C… read more
David Nichols continues his series investigating what makes a city liveable with a visit to a town dubbed one of Britain’s ‘funkiest’, and a city built on reclaimed land in the Netherlands.
Hebden Bridge
Though not a city, Hebden Bridge – in England’s north (Yorkshire with a frisson of… read more
In the third in his series on urban liveability, David Nichols finds a Dublin in uncharacteristically gloomy mood.
The ancient Greeks used to build cities to be confusing: the idea was that enemy invaders had to be met by surprising twists and turns which would pose no problem to locals… read more
Our liveability ambassador David Nichols continues his highly unscientific international survey of liveability with this look at Tel Aviv.
Not only liveable but also lovable, Tel Aviv strikes a midpoint between Hong Kong and Melbourne for density, scores a little higher on the pet scale… read more
Melbourne is consistently rated at the top of liveability surveys year in, year out. When Melbourne was rated number 1 in one such 2011 poll, we wondered, just what does liveability mean? We asked the peripatetic David Nichols to explore that question as he set out to travel the world at… read more
As 2011 ends and 2012 begins, we’ve invited our resident organisations to consider the year gone by and to share their plans for the year to come.
2011 was a huge year for SPUNC – it was the year in which we began to carve a path forward for Australian independent publishers entering the e… read more
As 2011 ends and 2012 begins, we’ve invited our resident organisations to consider the year gone by and to share their plans for the year to come.
In 2011 the Emerging Writers' Festival enjoyed our biggest year ever – and, I think, our most professional. We are just eight years old and… read more
As 2011 ends and 2012 begins, we’ve invited our resident organisations to consider the year gone by and to share their plans for the year to come.
Australian Poetry has had an exciting inaugural year, launching as an organisation in January 2011 with a charter to promote and support… read more
Smut for Teens? More, Please
Notions of Nationhood
Melinda Tankard Who?
A Black Day for Free Speech
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The Wheeler Centre Gala 2012: Stories to Believe In
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David Holmgren on Retrofitting the Suburbs for Sustainability
