Friday Finds

- This essay on Challenging the 'Women, Cattle & Slaves' Narrative by Kameron Hurley is doing things to me. Beautifully written, funny and sharply smart, you should all read this. Immediately.

- Jason Nahrung's also put together a pretty brilliant 2013 Australian Literary Festival Calendar. Which is awesome. A great resource for Aussies too, so get out your diary and some sparkly markers and make some bookings.

- 10 ways to take a bad author photo! These are great though. I need one of me conga lining like a pro.

- This is really interesting - What Fast & Furious 6 could teach Star Trek Into Darkness about half-naked women. In short - agency, agency, agency.

- Check out Bernadette Pascua's creative portfolio! Hearts in my eyes.

As a total aside, this weekend I'll be rocking out at Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne and managing the Slow Writing Centre at Abbotsford Convent. If you're in the area, you should come say hi! I'd love to talk to you. :)

Your Mid-Week Art Break: Jemma Salume

I am heart-eyeing all over the place at the lovely work by Jemma Salume. Her character and animal studies are pretty excellent and her work inspired by fables, fairytales and gods is, well, kind of sublime. Check out her illustrations over on DeviantArt.

Friday Finds

- This post on planning your own writing retreat is sure to be handy for anyone wanting to go down that path.

- QANTAS airline is publishing short books for flights! This is a pretty awesome initiative, one that I hope goes off.

- Things said to lady journos is a pretty eyeopening look at sexism, misogyny and gender stereotypes still so prevalent in journalism.

- On a much lighter note, 44 reasons why you're Chandler Bing!

- I'm entirely obsessed with these armor-style leggings from Balenciaga's new collection. They're just excellent. 

- And because it's great, cat beards! I really doubt I'll be able to successfully wrangle my cat into doing this.

Your Mid-Week Art Break: Marina Munn

I am hearteyeing all of Bulgarian-born, Marina Munn's artwork pretty hard right now. Part Ghibli, part Adventure Time, her work transcends both and makes for some pretty special narrative creatures. Love love love. Check out her work on her website.

Friday Finds

- 65 Books you need to read in your twenties. I have read like, six of these which is probably grossly unimpressive? I'm definitely keen to read some more of them though! Watch me add them to my book list.

- These four basic storytelling questions are a great way to develop your work and to start thinking more laterally about the distinctions between characters.

- So the first look at Marvel's Agents of SHIELD series was released and omg, I am dying with excitement. Dying. (Also, is that guy leaping from the roof Luke Cage? Because I need him to be Luke Cage).

- Famous authors handwritten outlines of their novels.

- A selection of great Smiths and Morrisey covers by female artists! This is totally up my alley and like. Really good? I kind of love the Tiffany cover of Panic. 

- This animated short film on the history of typography is pretty great too.

Your Mid-Week Art Break: Anton Van Hertbruggen

Anton Van Hertbruggen's illustrations of suburban stargazers are pretty remarkable in both their simplicity and complexity. He does a pretty masterful job of bringing to life the skies and the people who gaze up at them. All of his work is nice though - some really sweet domestic, suburban scenes. Check them out over at his website.

A Mix for May

Since I was at Groovin' the Moo two weeks ago, it only seems fitting for this month's mix to be some of the artist's I saw while I was there. It was pretty great, and meant I got to see a lot of old favourites and a few that are sneaking up to look like new ones. Either way, the whole thing was a blast and I hope the mix above gets you into a good mood. Enjoy!

Sunday Short: Symbols and Signs by Vladimir Nabokov

As a baby, he looked more surprised than most babies. A photograph of a German maid they had had in Leipzig and her fat-faced fiancé fell out of a fold of the album. She turned the pages of the book: Minsk, the Revolution, Leipzig, Berlin, Leipzig again, a slanting house front, badly out of focus. Here was the boy when he was four years old, in a park, shyly, with puckered forehead, looking away from an eager squirrel, as he would have from any other stranger. Here was Aunt Rosa, a fussy, angular, wild-eyed old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, and cancerous growths until the Germans put her to death, together with all the people she had worried about. The boy, aged six—that was when he drew wonderful birds with human hands and feet, and suffered from insomnia like a grown-up man. His cousin, now a famous chess player. The boy again, aged about eight, already hard to understand, afraid of the wallpaper in the passage, afraid of a certain picture in a book, which merely showed an idyllic landscape with rocks on a hillside and an old cart wheel hanging from the one branch of a leafless tree.

I read Vladimir Nabokov for the first time earlier in the year in the form of Lolita, and since have been on a little bit of a kick. His ability to twist your empathy into sympathy for characters that don't always deserve it is on the best side of brilliant. That said, the people in Symbols and Signs certainly do. In so few words, Symbols and Signs isn't so much a deconstruction of mental illness but a study in helplessness. The story depicts the elderly parents of an unwell son, and it's the middle of the story, with the mother sitting down with old photos and realising signs that she'd ignored as a younger woman, where this story surges into something masterful and achingly painful. Nabokov perfectly captures that feeling of being a bystander to incidents concerning loved ones, and that horrible helplessness that accompanies it. It's pretty wonderful.

You can read Symbols and Signs over at 'The New Yorker' archives.

Friday Finds

- Patti Smith's fantastic advice for young writers. *chinhands*

- Maureen Johnston challenged her twitter followers to genderflip book covers. The results were both amazing and, well, kind of horrifying.

- These literary tattoos are wonderful. 

- This documentary by the wonderful Sarah Polley, The Stories We Tell, looks unbelievably good. I'm excited 

- Women in punk archives! Yusss.

- Photos of cultural icons at prom! I actually kind of love all the dresses, even though most of them are the worst.

- These underwater photographs by Bruce Mozert are beautiful and strange and strangely compelling. Love-er-ly stuff.

- In other news, I really want this t-shirt. And most of these shoes. And all of the stationary in Mr. Boddington's Studio shop. Because seriously. Hearts in my eyes.

Your Mid-Week Art Break: Ella Cohen

There's something pretty magical about Ella Cohen's work, with it's bold, flat colours and abstract designs. They have a tendency to look, at first glance, like something out of a picture book, and it's only on a closer look that you're met with a world full of raunch and adultness. It's pretty great. Check out more of Ella's work at ellakookoo.

Sunday Short: Stuck Landing by Jill Summers

Jeremy and I are twins but not the creepy kind. And we have red hair but, and you are just going to have to trust me on this, not the upsetting kind. We’re identical and I think Jeremy looks a lot younger, but Dad said we came out side by side, both of us at the exact same time, whistling Dixie. When Jeremy asked if he was serious, Dad smacked him on the forehead and told him no one wanted to hear which one of us was forty-five goddamn seconds older than the other.

There's something a bit unnerving about Jill Summers' short fiction piece, Stuck Landing. Equal parts gentle and biting, the story tells of twin brothers who've recently lost their mother and paints a compelling picture of a life without. It's kind of brilliant.

You can read Stuck Landing over on the 'Paper Darts' website.

Friday Finds

- It feels like talk of self-publishing's been everywhere this week, so I've compiled some of the better conversations here for you. In particular, I'd recommend reading Estelle Tang's post on self-publishing and blogging here. Writer Unboxed also has a good one here on the new era of self-publishing.

- There's a brilliant post over at The Review Review on What Editors Want. Seriously. Check it out.

- I mostly want to go everywhere in this list of stops in the literary landscapes. So, so wonderful.

- Speaking of places I want to go, the Studio Ghibli museum leaves me chinhandsing all over the place. I love it so much and am (hopefully!) going there next year.

- Flavorwire has compiled a list of 10 Great Movies Based on Poems! It all looks pretty magical. I've only seen two of the one's featured, but would already like to add Howl to the list, even if it's only kind of based on the poem.

- A friend recently introduced me to the joy that is shakespearewithgifs.tumblr.com. SERIOUSLY THOUGH. PROSE BEFORE HOES. It deserves capslock.

- These new Nancy Drew covers! That I really wished were legit. Lookit her! She's fabulous.

- The Least Wanted has a photostream of sixties mugshots and jeez, I love them all. There is something so brilliant about them - each sullen and rotund and narrow and heavy and just so full of character.

- 10 of the best Futurama inventions! I love this show.

As a total aside, I'll be in Townsville this weekend for the Groovin' the Moo festival and am kind of delirious with excitement. Tegan & Sara! The Kooks! Hungry Kids of Hungary! They're all pretty great. 

Your Mid-Week Art Break: wishcandy

I am totally obsessed with the illustrations of Wishcandy (or Sashiko Yuen). Her designs area all this sort of perfect cocktail of whimsy, punk and generally radness. I'm particularly feeling her collection rebel grrrls (I mean, there's not a thing I don't love about the above illustration), but it's all pretty great. Check her work out over at her website.