Friday Finds

This cover of Dolly Parton's Jolene by Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons has basically made my week.

In other news:
- There are no words to describe how much I love this selection of female mugshots from the 1920s. The hair alone is marvelous, but the stories the photos and characters within them tell are ones I want to tuck inside my head. A part of me desperately wants to write the Harry Crawford story.

- I am pretty late to the party on this one, but Troy Library's Book Burning campaign to save itself is basically the best thing I've seen all week.


- These aerial views of Australian beaches are perfection. I kind of want the Bondi Beach one as a print on a dress or skirt.

- In writerly news, Christopher Currie did a great post over on his blog about what dispelling some of the myths on what happens after your first book is published. 

- This hipster reading flowchart is also pretty great. 

- To take you out for the weekend, check out this short film by Irish animator Eamonn O'Neill. It's pretty wonderful, juxtaposing the intensely dark content with vibrant, violent colour. It's pretty great.

Your Mid-Week Art Break: Lorelay Bove

Lorelay Bove is one of those wonderful people who worked on Wreck-It-Ralph and has a pretty wonderful slew of fairytale and Disney inspired work over at her website. I'm particularly charmed by the above illustration of The Princess and the Pea. Wonderful stuff.

Friday Finds

- The AWM Speakeasy blog series interviewing Australian journals and publishing outlets continues to be pretty great. The most recent one is with The Crime Factory, a magazine I wasn't overly familiar with prior to reading. The interview provides a great insight into the publication and the crime/noir-genre as a whole, as well as an interesting perspective on true crime tales. You can check out the interview over here.

- One of my favourite bits of news this week was that Studio Ghibli has two new films on the horizon. Two, you guys! A new war film by Miyazaki and a myth-princess film from Takahata. Both are ticking my boxes, and I'm certainly excited for the finished products.

- Plus Joss Whedon's Top 10 Writing Tips! Joss Whedon! Writing tips! Those are two of my favourite things.

Your Mid-Week Art Break: Hajin Bae

I can barely even vocalise all the feels that Hajin Bae's illustrations give me. Intensely detailed and kind of gentle, they really are a lot of great somethings.

Sunday Short: Yours & Mine by Rhiannon Hartley

Yours and Mine by Rhiannon Hartley is a short piece of memoir as opposed to a short piece of fiction, but it was so lovely I wanted to rec it anyway. Written for the sex issue of Stilts, a local, Brisbane journal, Yours and Mine covers relationships delicately and frankly, from pubescent boyfriends to falling in love with best friends. It's one of those horribly intimate pieces that resonates more than I generally care to admit, and that's really why it works.

I grew up as one of three sisters, sidelined to the subtleties of what I saw as another world. The older I got, the more private the idea of self seemed to become; the closeness I had once shared with my sisters was stretched and warped, and what I had once seen as a mutual experience suddenly seemed intensely personal, to be guarded at all costs. Coming of age for me was less about proving myself, and more about claiming myself.

 You can read Yours and Mine over at the Stilts website.

Friday Finds

- One day I'll put together a proper post on my strong feelings about cover art, from books to albums to graphic novels, I love a cover's ability to build an audience. Super Punch does these great posts regularly containing the best upcoming comic book covers. The most recent round-up has some particularly great covers, check out the DC Comics and the Dark Horse ones.


- I'm totally in love with all of the photos over at Alécio de Andrade's website. His folios and photosets are gooorgeous.

- Speaking of great photography, Miss Moss put together a cool timeline of some great photos. It's wonderful to see time transition along with fashions and the people. It makes me want to write a whole lot of historical fic tbh.

- The Millions put together a post arguing literary fiction as a genre and then providing some examples of the prevalent tropes, and man, it should not be as hilarious and awesome as it is. Seriously, check it out.

- Christopher Currie has a pretty great round-up post of books in 2012 over at the Meanjin blog. It kind of makes me want a video report ala the stock market during news broadcasts. 

Your Mid-Week Art Break: Britt Wilson

Britt Wilson is a totally charming illustrator. Her work is expressive and always surprising in the best possible way. You should check out her blog over here.

Friday Finds

- If you know me well, you know that I have a pretty epic love for all things Fitzgerald, Scott and Zelda both. Which is why this video has kind of made my life in that stupid, bittersweet way this morning. It's pretty lovely.

- Flavorwire has compiled a lovely list of some of Sylvia Plath's Beautiful Musings on Life. They truly are wonderful. This one in particular is lovely:

“What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don’t know and I’m afraid. I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.”

- The Guardian has an interesting article about Canada and Australia launching women's writing prizes and why they're important (I am legit excited for the Stella Prize, guys).

- And to take you into the weekend, the Jane Eyre toddler board book! As Aimée in the office put it, traumatize your toddler with gothic fiction today! Also, if you don't think I am going to buy the hell out of this for future offspring, you are sorely mistaken.

Your Mid-Week Art Break: Marlo Meekins

Marlo Meekins is great. She's stylistically really unique and her work ranges from the totally, hilariously abstract, the pop-culture-infused, to self-deprecating realism. It's pretty awesome.

Friday Finds

I cannot stop listening to Solange Knowles' 'Losing You'. It's so catchy and

- Book spine poetry! This is all so, so great. I'm kind of tempted to brave it over the weekend.

- This article on writing horror (when you didn't think you could) is pretty great.