Are Our Reading Habits Sexist?

If you study the numbers you might notice that the publishing industry is dominated by male writers. The cold hard statistics are right here. And they’re a little bit alarming. The VIDA: Women in Literary Arts have been crunching the numbers for three years, and each year has shown that publications regarding male writers are … Continue reading →

Cuttings: Issue #2

This online journal of new Australian writing is looking for submissions for their second issue, ‘Meanwhile, over the hill…’, which focuses on the ever-expanding genre of ‘farm-lit’. I’m kind of excited about this because I’m deeply in love with the outback and am keen to rustle up some hot and dusty words. Raising goats, knitting … Continue reading →

the mountain

I’ve been reading Robert Frost’s collected poems, and when I got to ‘The Mountain’ there were two lines in particular that really struck me. It doesn’t seem so much to climb a mountain You’ve worked around the foot of all your life. I saw the metafiction in these words, heard what advice Frost was giving … Continue reading →

people who belittle your ambitions

This is the kind of advice that makes Mark Twain feel like your wise and encouraging grandfather. And the nice thing is that it isn’t just relevant to writing, you can apply this to any part of your life: Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that but … Continue reading →

Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2013 – The Winner

With a shortlist of awfully dirty contenders, this year’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award has officially been announced by Britain’s Literary Review. Manil Suri’s The City of Devi has won, with this cliched and hyperbolic excerpt: Surely supernovas explode that instant, somewhere, in some galaxy. The hut vanishes, and with it the sea and the … Continue reading →

like a long walk

I like walking when the sun is going down. But if writing is like walking then you can’t always choose when you set off or where you’re going. Roald Dahl once said that When you’re writing it’s rather like going on a long walk, across valleys and mountains and things, and you get the first … Continue reading →

Cordite Poetry Review: Silence

Cordite is an online literary journal that highlights new poetry from established and emerging writers and they’re currently looking for submissions for their next issue: Silence. Poets can submit up to 3 poems via an online submission form and should make sure they’re in before December 14 2013. Payments are only available to Australian residents … Continue reading →

Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2013 – The Shortlist

I’ve been waiting for this for what seems like forever. If last year’s awards and the shortlisted excerpts are anything to go by, the Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2013 is gonna be a doozy. Literary Review have scoured books for terrible sex scenes and found some absolute shockers. My favourite at the moment … Continue reading →

Short and Twisted 2014

‘Short and Twisted’ is back for another year of twisty goodness. It’s published by Celapene Press who are looking for short stories and poems with a twist at the end to include in their 8th Short and Twisted Anthology. Rules are pretty much the same as last year: stories come in categories of ‘Short’, ‘Super … Continue reading →

Happy Birthday Mansfield!

I love Katherine Mansfield’s short stories. I think they’re some of the best I’ve ever read. So when I saw on the Google homepage that it would be her 125th birthday, I just had to make a post. The amount of careful crafting and detailed character construction that goes into her stories is amazing. If … Continue reading →