Review of 'Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature' ed. Anita Heiss and Pete Minter.

Review of 'Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature' ed. Anita Heiss and Pete Minter

Review of Proofs by Christopher Conti

Review of Proofs by Christopher Cont

The Fooseball Table

Creative non-fiction piece by Heather Taylor Johnson

Christos Tsiolkas and the Ghosts of our Past

With the arrival of his first novel in 1995, Loaded, Christos Tsiolkas became a voice for a new generation of Australians. The book's main character, Ari - later made into the flesh by actor Alex Dimitriades in the film adaptation Head On - represented a young, gay Greek Australian man, angered by classism and racism to the point of self-destruction, and confused with his place in the world that surrounds him. This character would be reborn in many other men in Tsiolkas' books, as would these themes become the crux of his work. His other novels include The Jesus Man (1999), Dead Europe (2005; winner of The Age Book of the Year), The Slap (2008; winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and adapted into an award winning mini-series) and his latest book Barracuda (2013). He is a multi-talented writer with an autobiography and book of essays to add to his collection, as well as 'playwright' and 'screenwriter' to add to his list of titles. Often referred to by literary critics as our most controversial writer, Christos Tsiolkas lays bare what it means to be Australian, and in this interview I revisit what for me is his most controversial book, Dead Europe

It's Just Thought You Know': An Interview with Ken Bolton

Ken Bolton is iconic, as far as Australian poets go, yet he remains a figure somewhat on the outer. For instance, he was not included in the comprehensive Australian Poetry since 1788, yet it was noted in the Australian that he should have been. His books, though shortlisted, have never won a Premier’s prize, yet Monash University held ‘A Ken Bolton Day: a symposium celebrating the writings and influences of poet, art critic and publisher Ken Bolton’. His style of poetry is uniquely his, termed as ‘Boltonian’ , and has been imitated by many a poet. In the late 70s, Ken’s first book, Four Poems, was published by Sea Cruise press, a press which he helped to establish. Back then he was also the editor of the journal Magic Sam, where he regularly published his own work alongside his poet-friends. What Ken was doing with poetry at the time was unconventional; someone had to publish it so why not him? Clearly the lifestyle of writing and publishing writing worked for him because he has since had more than twenty books of poetry published (including a Selected Poems, put out by Penguin in 1992 and another from Shearsman in 2012), started another publishing press (Little Esther Books) and edited another journal (Otis Rush). He also edited the anthology Homage to John Forbes. His art criticism has been collected (as Art Writing, 1990 to the 2000s, published by the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia) and much of it collected and regularly updated on the AEAF website as The Formguide. In this interview, Ken talks about his poetry, other people’s poetry, humour and John Jenkins and how the two often connect, art, the 70s, Sydney and Adelaide, and plagiarising his own words