Friday Finds

- How great is this genderswap cosplay of The Hobbit? I'd be much more interested in seeing this than the actual film.(Sorry! Not a Hobbit fan)

- The 50 Coolest Fictional Cities.

- 50 books by women authors to help you #readwomen2014. *Adds to reading list*

- How to Tell if You're in a Hemingway novel. Or! Even better! How to tell if you're in a Bronte novel.

- These aerial photos of Botswana are pretty amazing. So are these ones of Big Sur.

A Book a Week in 2014: 'Jasper Jones' by Craig Silvey (04/52)

Charlie Bucktin is woken up in the middle of the night in the blistering summer of 1965 by Jasper Jones, the outcast of Corrigan. Jasper takes him out passed old Mad Jack Lionel's place to where Laura Wishart, the politician's daughter, hangs dead from a tree. What occurs afterwards is an exploration of racism, death, first loves, and the ties that bind small town life together. 

Jasper Jones was heavily hyped for me and, as a result, I maybe didn't enjoy it as much as I might have. Craig Silvey's certainly a good writer, but he tends to labour in a lot of exposition and while the story starts with a bang, it takes a long time for it to drive forwards after the boys uncover Laura's body. Silvey spends a lot of time exploring small town life - everything from odd, household punishments to the heavy racism that dominated Corrigan during the Vietnam War and this is both the ultimate strength of the novel and it's downfall too. It's an atmospheric story, and the moments between Charlie and Laura's sister, Eliza, are entirely darling (their banter about traveling is so sweet). 

Likewise, Jeffery Lu, Charlie's best friend, is a great and compelling character, managing to snag a lot of the best lines of dialogue, and I both didn't appreciate and did the fact that he was never really roped into the Wishart family drama. That said, Charlie's mother never rang true for me at all, being a biting, angry woman with few redeeming qualities. Her shrill, aggressive nature added little to the story, and the pages and pages we got of her punishing Charlie were both dull and frustrating.  

In many ways, I think this would be a better film than a book. It's not that Craig Silvey's not a talented writer - he definitely is!  - there was just a lot of emotion and a lot of real visual sensibilities in this book that I can't help but feel would be represented beautifully in on screen. Silvey's writing thrives in these quieter, small town moments, and I think an adaptation has the potential to be pretty sublime. 

3 out of 5 Mad Jack peaches.

Monthlies + Farewells

Music is such a huge part of my life that it feels kind of natural to subject people to my taste on it here (or hear, hahaha, I've had a weird, pun-tastic day).  Anything from forties country through to indie rock, old soul, new folk and modern pop appeals to me, speaks to me on some level, and sure, some of it means more to me than others, but that doesn't detract from any of it either. This has been kind of an odd month for me, so have a bit of an odd mix to take you out for the month.

Speaking of odd things, one of my closest friends has gotten a job in Sydney and is moving out of my house and flying down on Friday. It's pretty great and I am so, so proud of her. She's always been such a hard worker and the job is awesome and one that she thoroughly deserves. That said, I can't be entirely unselfish about it. I've known her for ten years now - lived within driving distance for the duration of that and actually with her for two. We're very different personality types and butt heads like crazy, but we've stuck together through that. Thick and thin and all. I have faith in the strength of our friendship, that it'll survive the sideways shuffle of the move, but it's still such a strange thought to think she won't be just across the hall from me. And, y'know, there's still a big part of me that wishes my friends would stick around forever. At least Sydney's not so far anymore - I know someone who got a flight there recently from Brisbane for $56 which is pretty darn sweet.

Sunday Short: The Lists by Ryan O'Neill

No. 902: How not to get up in the morning
1. Wake.
2. Keep your eyes closed.
3. Turn your head to the left.
4. Say a prayer.
5. Open your eyes.
6. Stare at the empty space on the bed next to you.
7. Accept that she is still gone.
8. Close your eyes.
9. Sleep.
10. Go back to step 1.

I go on and off experimental fiction. I mean, the good stuff is so great, but the bad stuff is so bad, often clunky and lacking in both character arcs and meaning. That's not so with Ryan O'Neill's The List, a story told, as the title implies, through lists. This is a beautiful piece of writing. A totally simple concept executed sublimely and, not even going to lie, it may have been raining on my face a bit by the end there.

You can read 'The List' over on The Monthly's website.

Friday Finds

I'm a pretty huge fan of Adele, and this version of Make Your Feel My Love has been in my head all week. It's just lovely.

- Tor.com has a pretty great post over on their blog about mapping out your fantasy world.

- These Beatles vans are slaying.

- Broken Age looks pretty amazing too.

- Powerful photos of segregated America only recently discovered.

- These fake London Underground signs are also pretty great.

Ziggie by Edwin Tse

Oh, man, it's been a while since I've totally fallen in love with a photographer, but I've got hearts in my eyes over the work of Edwin Tse. His sense of space, colour, light and style are all pretty remarkable, and I was especially taken in by this set, Ziggie. I just want to be her, live in this place, wear these things. It's beautiful.
You can check out more of Edwin Tse's work over on his website.

Sunday Short: Cargo

Zombies have experienced such a heyday over the last few years that it's hard to believe that there's an original story yet to be told. That said, Cargo, a finalist at last year's Tropfest is a beautiful story well-told. The decision to remove dialogue from this piece - leaving the only sound the kitten mews of the baby and the poignant, arching violins raises this above a lot of other shorts in the genre. The result is a heartfelt story about parenthood at the end of the world.

You can watch Cargo on youtube via the link above.

Friday Finds

Birdy! *chinhands*

- This Hayao Miyazaki tribute on The Simpsons is pretty wonderful.

- Author mugshots!

- The ultimate guide to 2014's science-fiction fantasy shows!

- Matt Fraction is writing a genderswapped comic based on The Odyssey. I'll just be over here hyperventilating, thanks.

- 13 words you probably didn't know were invented by Shakespeare.

- Vulture keeps proving to be my favourite entertainment blog by ranking the Oscar-seasons sad, white men by which is saddest and whitest WITH A MORRISEY RATING. (This is basically the best).

Sea Pre-Fall 2014

It's been ridiculously hot here in Brisbane of late, so it's pretty nice to see these beachy, autumnal clothes spring up as a part of New York-based label Sea's Pre-Fall 2014 collection. I'm loving the prints and silhouettes especially (even if I don't think they'd necessarily suit my frame all that much!) I'm always a bit obsessed with contrasting angles too, and the big sweaters and sharp skirt lines are just doing things to me.

You can check out the full collection over on Style.com.

  

 

 

   

A Book a Week in 2014: 'Will Grayson, Will Grayson' by John Green & David Levithan (03/52)

Will Grayson is a guy overlooked. Not only is he constantly in the shadow of his larger than life best friend, Tiny Cooper, he's just been kicked out of his circle of friends for defending said best friend's right to be both gay and the football team's star player. will grayson's luck is really no better. Living an hour out of Chicago, will grayson is quasi-goth, closeted and best friend's with a girl who writes pretty terrible poetry. His one saving grace is the online relationship he has with a boy named Isaac, well, it is until the two of them decide to meet.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a novel by YA superstars, John Green and David Levithan and is, well, of the caliber you'd expect from the two of them. It's smart, laugh-out-loud funny, explosive and very poignant. They both do a pretty awesome job of capturing the neurosis, insecurity and isolation that comes from being a teenager in a digital age, and the connections made, lost, and won back are pretty beautifully explored.

David Levithan, who wrote upper-case Will Grayson, for me at least, did a better job of making a typically weak character relatable. Will Grayson is funny and sweet, and the sort of hopeless that reminds me of my own highschool experience. John Green's lower-case will grayson didn't ring quite so right with me. It's not that it's not well-written, or even unrelatable. I'm pretty sure I went to school with a lot of people just like will grayson, and I'm pretty sure they would've annoyed me back then too. He's so melodramatic, and not in the way that the glorious Tiny Cooper is either. Just in a way that reminds me why you're not a teenager forever.

Despite that, the book's pretty great, and an awesomely in-tune story of those sorts of intense, weird connections you only really make as a teenager.

4 out of 5 Tiny Cooper musical interludes.

Sunday Short: The Way It Was by Eleanor Cooney

Women of all kinds seek and have always sought abortion: married, single, in their twenties, thirties, and forties, teenagers. Some have no children, some have several already. Some never want children, some want children later. They are churchgoers, atheists, agnostics. They are morally upright pillars of the community, they are prostitutes. They're promiscuous, they're monogamous, they're recent virgins. They get pregnant under all kinds of circumstances: consensual sex, nonconsensual sex, sex that falls somewhere between consensual and nonconsensual. Some are drunk or using drugs, some never even touch an aspirin. Some use no birth control, some use birth control that fails.

Abortion is still such a controversial topic internationally for something that is, ultimately, the choice of one person. It's not really a secret, on that note, that I'm pro-choice, and this article by Eleanor Cooney provides a really interesting background into the legalities surrounding abortion in the United States. She's emphatic, and kind and, well, makes a whole lot of sense. She's fourthcoming about her own experience and how close she came to a dangerous backdoor abortion is both scary and rings so true. It's an important piece of writing in an time where, I think, talking about abortion is important.

You can read 'The Way It Was' over on Mother Jones here.

A Book a Week in 2014: 'Drown' by Junot Diaz (02/52)

I read Junot Diaz in reverse, starting with This is How You Lose Her, then The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and finishing this week with Drown, a moving collection of interwoven stories spanning two generations of Dominican immigrants both back home and in the United States. It's the birth of Yunior and Rafa, two brothers who are felt through all of Diaz's work, and they're conception here is certainly grabbing. From the second Rafa and Yunior decide to pull the mask off the faceless boy through to Yunior's rules for dating, the collection works as a portrait of a boy turned man, and one that's, well, not always entirely flattering.

Drown's not my favourite of Diaz's work. It doesn't have the worldliness or history of the two books that come after this, but it's still an affecting work of fiction, and really is the foundation for what Oscar Wao and This is How You Lose Her cement. 

4 out of 5 faceless boys.

Friday Finds

I'm having a Vampire Weekend kind of week. Soooo much Vampire Weekend.

- Kelly Sue DeConnick is adapting Barbarella!! There are not enough likes in the woooorld.

- Literary snobs: a ranked taxonomy.

- 50 essential movies about exhilaratingly bad women! How have I only seen 11 of  these?! I sense a movie marathon in my future.

- If you're in the land down under with me, Emerging Writers Festival is on the hunt for some associate producers.

- Every fake URL ever used on Law and Order. These are delightful. I would've thought there would've been a lot more though? Although scumwatch.com makes me think of like, a pond maintenance website.

- LUMBERJANES!!!! I can barely even vocalise how excited I am for this series.

Sunday Short: Freshwater Dreaming by Jane Jervis-Read

I remember. Her fingers trace the labyrinth of a river-softened root network. The eucalypt’s body is silent and anchored, weightless in death. It arched from the bank long ago and water flooded its veins. The girl pries the root fingers. She is looking for something. Pointed vertebrae ridge strangely under the skin of her back and she is naked. From the bank, with scabby feet in scrubby grass, I am watching her. A wooden boat hangs from my hand. The girl hears something I do not hear and turns suddenly, sees me. Her pupils constrict into two black stripes, but she holds my gaze. I look at her and she looks at me, sees me, sees through my clothes and my hat and the wooden boat, sees through my skin and bones and heart to what I am. I am twelve and my life will warp in focus around this point. 

I'm a total sucker for a good mermaid story, and man, is Freshwater Dreaming by Jane Jervis-Read a good one. Straddling the line between academic, logical, heart and fantasy, she tells a story about obsession and whimsy and those strange connections we make with the fantastical. It's a beautiful piece of writing, and it so wonderfully encapsulates the myth of the mermaid and the reality of the Murray River.

You can read 'Freshwater Dreaming' over on the Meanjin website here.

A Book a Week in 2014: Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple (01/52)

Bernadette Fox and Elgie Branch are a couple of geniuses in love. Along with their daughter, Bee, they live in an abandoned girls' reformatory school in Seattle. As they prep for a holiday to Antarctica, Bernadette's eccentricities prove harder to handle and, after a failed intervention, she disappears. Bee's investigation into where her mother's gone is told through emails, reports, articles letters and post-it note conversations, as she tracks the events surrounding the disappearance. Funny, biting and deeply moving, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? is ultimately one woman's journey back to herself after a long holiday from reality.

I fell pretty hard for this book. Offbeat and as eccentric as the characters in it, Maria Semple does an awesome job of capturing the intense bond between mother and daughter, and the blind, loving way one follows the other. Bernadette is such a fully realised character - so massively flawed, that it's hard not to fall in love with her. From her humble beginnings as an architect through to the menace to society that she becomes, her journey is poignant, darkly funny and ultimately rings true. Her relationship with insanity is as tumultuous as her relationship with the other characters. She's ultimately desperate for connections, but has no idea how to go about it - particularly when people frustrate her as much as they do.

It's a slow-starter which is the only thing that really bothered me in this one. It took me a while to get into it and even longer to see the point of the gnats (although the pay off on that one is worth while). Plus Elgie to me is not quite as realised as Bernadette and Bee. He mostly stumbles through the plot and while you understand his flaws, it's hard to pair him with Bernadette when he seems so distanced from her, even in the flashbacks.

All in all, it's a pretty remarkable novel about a woman on the edge, with  real shades of Wes Anderson and the Arrested Development series that Maria Semple originally worked on.

4 out of 5 fallen ladders.

Friday Finds

I finally saw Frozen yesterday and was totally blown away by it. It's really a return to form for Disney, and the story of the two sisters hit all my buttons in narrative story telling. I've had this song stuck in my head since I saw it too and it might just be my new theme song in kicking off the new year.

In other news:

- Neil Gaiman talks strong female characters to which I say yessssss. I do find Gaiman problematic in many ways, but it's great to hear him be so frank about such a misconstrued issue.

- Zadie Smith's 10 Rules for Writing are ones to live by.

- This new volume of Whitman Illuminated is so, so beautiful.

- James Blake covering Joni Mitchell's A Case of You is doing things to me right now.

- I love a good infographic, so Vanity Fair compiling the best of them from 2013 in this handy post is pretty awesome.

2014

So we made it! It's the new year, which is pretty crazy and pretty awesome. 2013 was a long and hard and good year for me and I'm excited to see it come to an end and hopefully unfold into something a little better and a little less turbulent.

I'm trying not to look back at 2013 too much, so, hey! Let's look to the new year with 14 resolutions to drive me forwards.

14 Resolutions for 2014

1. Read a book a week for a year and review them. I was reading about three books a month in 2013 anyway, so this shouldn't be too much of a stretch. Plus, y'know, I love talking about books in real time, so there's no reason transferring that conversation here can't be a good one.  
2. Get at least one short story or non-fiction piece a month published + stop submitting to non-paying markets.
3. Blog more! 
4. Travel more - make at least two interstate trips and one overseas one. Probably New South Wales and Victoria for the interstate and (hopefully!) either the United States or South East Asia for the overseas one. Just got to work on my savings!
5. Go to the gym three times a week. Swim. Yoga. Pilates.
6. Hang out with friends more. This one sounds pretty vague, but I swear it's not! I got so swept up in work in 2013 that I seriously neglected some of the people that I love the most. I really want to remedy this in the new year. 
7. Get better at texting people back. Haha, I am the worst at this one.
8. Take advantage of more opportunities for professional development - particularly paid ones and internships over volunteering for PD.
9. Volunteer more for charities and not-for-profits. I used to do this a lot and it's another one of those things that fell off my radar in 2013, much to my own disappointment. 
10. Be able to have a conversation in Spanish. I've been learning it in a bit of an ad hoc way over 2013, and I'd love to streamline it and have a working knowledge of the language.

SO, these last four are going to be project-related / writing goals, so feel free to just check in at the end of the year to see if I've managed to keep them!

1.  Finish Lost Girls and submit to publishers. This is the short story collection and is SO CLOSE. I love it so far and think that it could be almost good to go.
2. Plot and finish the Homebodies screenplay.
3. Finish Selenography, the YA werewolf novel, and submit to Text.
4. Finish The Rabbits and take it to the Tin House writing workshop in the States.

And that's it! How about you? Are you taking any goals into the new year and giving yourself some deadlines?