I had an amazing day in Bacchus Marsh, where I was lucky enough to win the Peter Carey Short Story Award. Apart from the obvious shock and delight of winning, getting to drink a beer with the judge, Nic, and the award organizers, Wayne & Jem (excellent writers themselves), was a real pleasure. The Shire mayor even invited me to come to his place for a writer’s retreat!

My story, ‘Let’s Talk Trojan Bee’, will be published in the spring 2019 issue of Meanjin, alongside Paige Clark’s story, ‘Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’, which sounds amazing.

Big thank you again to the organizers and everyone else I met down in Moorabool Shire.

Writers: make sure you enter this comp next year!!

Pretty excited, no scrap that, bloody heaps excited to have a story long-listed for the Peter Carey Short Award. The story, “Let’s Talk Trojan Bees”, is a piece of speculative fiction in which climate changes leads to bee migration leads to right-wing conspiracy theories leads to chaos. It’ll be a part of my PhD creative artefact.

Winners/Runner-ups announced in early-June. Some prestigious writers elsewhere on the list, so chances are slim, but I just watched the Liverpool-Barcelona 2nd leg, so I ain’t giving up!

The May 2019 issue of ABR is out now, and it includes my review of Wayne Macaulay’s Simpson Returns. I thought the novella was slightly tangled in its allegory, but was still a scathing and affecting satire on Australian complacency.

Read the review here.

Last Sunday, I appeared on ABC Radio Adelaide to discuss the controversial Chris Lilley with host Peter Goers, and panelists Samela Harris and Phil Scott. Illustrious company indeed, and I won’t pretend I wasn’t nervous, but I thought it went OK. Listen to the show (28 April 2019) here.

For anyone interested in Chris Lilley’s new show, I was lucky enough to review it for The Conversation. Most critics seem to be absolutely hating it (e.g. this rough but excellently written review in the Guardian), but I didn’t think it was all that bad. Curious to hear what others think.

Read my review here.

In The Conversation, Robert Phiddian and I  are asking why so much Australian satire seems toothless these days, and what we can do about it. The idea for this article came out of a spontaneous conversation (Robert is my PhD supervisor), so it has found its perfect environment.

We are getting absolutely blasted in the comments section, so have a read and then tell us how stupid and left-wing cocooned we are!

https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-is-australian-satire-so-rarely-risky-112689

 

 

Super excited to announce that the special South Aussie edition of Westerly Online—edited by myself and the incredible Amy Mead—is now available to download here. This FREE special issue is full of fiction, essays, poems, and photos all focusing on our weird and wonderful state; throw that Victorian novel you’re reading in the bin, and get into it!