Studying a book or film can be a short-cut to consigning it to boredom. But our Texts in the City series – a gift to students, their teachers and lifelong learners – brings the VCE English and…
There’s a special bond between a grandparent and a grandchild that sets their relationship apart from any other. Catriona Rowntree knows this first hand. Recognised as ‘Australia’s most travelled w…
We can’t wait to get back on the road again – bringing some of our favourite writers to regional Victoria. We’ll be packing up the car with books and authors, travelling from country to coast … and m…
Kristina Olsson’s mother married aged sixteen, madly in love with a too-charming older man. After they moved far from her Brisbane family, he turned abusive, starving and badly beating her. As she…
We can’t wait to get back on the road again – bringing some of our favourite writers to regional Victoria. We’ll be packing up the car with books and authors, travelling from country to coast … and m…
Pregnancy is natural, healthy and fun, right? Sure it is, if you’re lucky. But instead of a natural glow and orgasmic birth, Monica Dux experienced pregnancy as a medium-level catastrophe. In Things…
Edward St Aubyn’s novels are like black diamonds: dark, glittering jewels.His dark-witted books about the misdeeds of the privileged upper classes have been compared to Evelyn Waugh and Oscar Wilde. …
Joyful Strains, as the title suggests, is a new anthology exploring the sometimes bittersweet experiences of new migrants to Australia. From the relief of being welcomed to a new homeland, to…
There’s a huge public appetite for non-fiction storytelling in all its forms, from literary and political essays to the shelf-filling genre of memoir, and the much-maligned reality TV.This is a…
Helen Garner’s narrative non-fiction is practically its own genre, attracting international acclaim. Her landmark The First Stone, a controversial bestseller, broke new ground for Australian…
One of the most exhilarating things about travel is the way it takes you outside yourself – to discover new people, places and ideas. It also shifts your perspective: from the outside, everything…
Ramona Koval has long entered the lounge rooms and accompanied the car journeys of book lovers around Australia with ABC Radio National’s The Book Show. In By the Book, she shares the authors who…
And now for something completely different … we’re delighted to present everyone’s favourite travel addict, Michael Palin. (And we’re getting the Monty Python jokes out of the way before he gets…
Richard Gill has worked in music and education for 50 years – and has never missed a chance to sing the praises of both. In a frank and fearless new memoir that will get tongues wagging, he shares…
Most Melburnians know Lily Brett as a literary bestseller, her novels peopled with wisecracking Holocaust survivors obsessed with food and death. But in the swinging sixties, she was a rock…
When Michael Kirby retired from the High Court in 2009, he was Australia’s longest-serving judge. But it’s not his time on the bench that makes him so beloved; rather it’s his long record of human…
We’ve recently welcomed our second round of Hot Desk Fellowships, supported by the Readings Foundation, to the Wheeler Centre.We bid a sad farewell to our first round of fellows: Luke Ryan, Mel…
Get Well Soon!: My (Un)brilliant Career as a Nurse is Kristy Chambers' first book – and it’s just right for readers with a taste for black humour (and a strong stomach). In this frank and often…
Join Robyn Davidson, author of the iconic feminist travel/adventure memoirs Tracks and Desert Places, as she discusses peripatetic passions and peoples.
Gideon Haigh tells it like it really is: from falling in love with your subject to the long, hard (yet fascinating) slog of actually writing a book. He talks about the reality of shutting yourself…
It’s nice to be surprised as a reader. You open the pages thinking you know how the story goes, but instead you’re ambushed by an unexpected turn, or a narrator who usually stars in a different…
Joshua Cody
Video · Tue, 15 May 2012
Composer Joshua Cody says he’s not really a writer – but his raw, cerebral cancer memoir, [sic], suggests otherwise. The New York Times called it ‘the memoir of the year’ and praised the way its…
Some memoirs are less about the subject than about meeting the writer on the page. New York composer Joshua Cody’s [sic], ostensibly about being a young cancer patient, is one of those memoirs. Cody …
Novelist Alex Miller and historian Jim Davidson mark the first anniversary of the untimely passing of their friend Hazel Rowley. In the space of just four books, Rowley established herself as one of …
We share five of our favourite links to news, reviews or articles that we’ve discovered over the past week.Feast of Thrones: Eyeballs, pigs’ heads and dragon eggsFans of Game of Thrones, the series b…
Publisher Hilary McPhee, editor of celebrated film-maker Tim Burstall’s diaries, explores the impetus to diarise and the appeal of diaries as windows to the past. Burstall’s diaries in particular…
Publisher Hilary McPhee, editor of celebrated film-maker Tim Burstall’s diaries, explores the impetus to diarise and the appeal of diaries as windows to the past. Burstall’s diaries in particular…
Join Nick Coyle (Pig Island, Me Pregnant!), Justin Heazlewood (aka the Bedroom Philosopher) and host Virginia Gay as our guests read excerpts from their own personal archives of angst and ecstasy –
In the fourth of our partnered events with the Brisbane Writers Festival, Leah Chishugi shares her harrowing accounts and deeply courageous story of surviving the Rwandan genocide. Now finally…
Don Watson
Event · Mon, 12 Sep 2011
Don Watson reflects on ten years since the publication of his acclaimed biography, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart.Don Watson was employed as Paul Keating’s speechwriter. On its release, his…
Lunchbox/Soapbox returns for its third season in 2011 with former Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon reflecting on the nature of leadership. In her recently released memoir, Fair Cop…
Eva Gabrielsson, the widow of Swedish crime writing phenomenon Stieg Larsson speaks about his life, his writing and his legacy.Eva, an architect and author of several books, discusses her memoir…
(Click to watch video.)
Emma Forrest’s career as a writer almost predates her adolescence. She’s toured with pop bands, written a column in the Times…
Emma Forrest
Video · Thu, 26 May 2011
British writer Emma Forrest discusses her memoir of her struggle with mental illness, Your Voice in my Head — as well as the book’s narrative structure and the response it’s received from critics…
Autobiography, memoir, life-writing: countless genres, countless approaches. Exposing one’s life experiences on the page seems somewhat daunting. From Kate Holden’s personal and romantic travails to …
In a New York Times article titled ‘The Problem with Memoir’, Neil Genzlinger revisits the genre in his review of 4 new memoirs, including Johanna Adorjan’s An Exclusive Love.Genzlinger outlines 4…
The concept of heritage listing a building or a mountain is a well defined and familiar one, but preserving and maintaining a link with the past and building a narrative as a culture, involves far…
Who protects our stories, our histories, our memories? In partnership with the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World program, we reflect on the importance and impermanence of memory.Chaired by
Father holds six over least arrangement. (5, 5) A gibberish sentence for many of us, but an irresistible clue for those in the thrall of cryptic crosswords. And in the Australian scene, there are…
Meet Sebastian. He doesn’t talk much. In fact he hasn’t spoken since we met. The strong silent type, Sebastian has a round head and lean flanks. He hails from Sweden, along with Gilbert, who lives…
The US military is red-faced over a Pentagon campaign to buy up a controversial memoir about operations in Afghanistan, according to Aol News.Retired Lt Colonel Anthony Shaffer wrote the catchily…
Ian Brown’s son, Walker, was born with a genetic mutation so rare that doctors call it an orphan syndrome: perhaps one hundred people around the world live with it. In his moving account, The Boy in…
Ian Brown wrote about his son’s struggle with an orphan syndrome for Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, but also included some emotional video footage of his son Walker watching him play guitar and t…
The Observer publishes an extract from Patti Smith's new memoir, Just Kids.
Patti Smith's Just Kids: Harper Collins
