Friday Finds

So this has been a pretty big week! I received the first round of dollars as a part of my Queensland Literary Fellowship (!!) and was accepted into Tin House Summer Writers Workshop in Portland, Oregon (!!!!). So lots of writing news. It's good in a whole lot of ways. I've been hitting goals left right and centre so far in 2015, so hopefully I can keep that momentum going.

How about you though? How are your resolutions keeping?

- Parks and Recreation finished this week and I have all the sads. To feel a little better, check out these eight life lessons from Leslie Knope.

- These 22 pets who have no intention of letting you read is basically every time I pick up a book at home.

- One of my favourite books recently has been Where'd You Go, Bernadette?so I'm pretty thrilled to hear the wonderful Richard Linklater's adapting it for film!

- 11 powerful messages from women in Hollywood.

This perfectly preserved 1950s kitchen is everything.



- Which female literary character are you? I got Jo March!

- Harry Potter themed cocktails! I want to try them alllll.



- This article on women in horror is terrific, and particularly covers the wonderful Jennifer Kent's The Babadook.

- Also awesome is this piece by Jessica Alice on men who pose as feminist allies to fetishise and prey on women. 

What I'm Reading: February

February's been a weirdly slow reading month for me. It's a shame, because January was such a great one. Still, knocking four books off my to-read list is not a bad feat.

It's been a good list too - one of my 24 before 25 goals has been to read Jane Austen's canon, so reading both Sense and Sensibility and Emma has been a pretty riveting experience. Her knack for character dynamics, writing sisters and the mistaken-emotion is a lot more nuanced and compelling than I think she receives credit for. I mean, the romance and humour's great too, but there's some beautiful character interplay in the quieter moments too.

I also read Alice Pung's Laurinda which is totally wonderful. I've read it described as an Australian Mean Girls and it is in a lot of ways, but it has different strengths in it too, particularly in protagonist, Lucy and her family. It unraveled and sewed itself back together so seamlessly you hardly recognised the process as it happened.

And man, I FINALLY finished Y the Last Man this month. To say it's one of my favourite series' ever is a pretty accurate surmise of my feelings. I'm sure I'll write a more in-depth post down the line, but for now, just have all of the yes.

And that's about it from me in Feb. How about you? What have you been reading? 

Sunday Short: 'Enigma of Amigara Fault' by Junji Ito


You've got to give it to Japan. They know how to construct some pretty devastating horror stories. I actually came to 'Enigma of Amigara Fault' in a sort of round about way. I've been watching (and loving!) Steven Universe, and a recent episode blatantly references this short manga by Junji Ito. A friend linked me to this, and, well, here we are.

It's a wonderfully original concept, exploring compelling characters in few words and exploding open something from our natural world into something shiver-inducing. It's awesome.

You can read 'Enigma of Amigara Fault' by Junji Ito over at Open Awesome.

Friday Finds

Weather's a bit monstrous here in Queensland today with Cyclone Marcia raising her head. If you're in the state, please be safe!
- Your week in trailers: Crimson Peak basically ticks all my boxes. Spring looks like an interesting take on horror tropes. Far From the Madding Crowd looks gorgeous. Maps to the Stars is totally batshit? But awesome? The Falling is everything. 

- Ladies totally done with red carpet / press junket sexism are awesome.

- You'll soon be able to get a patronus on Pottermore!

- These old Australian mugshots look like a high fashion shoot.

- And hey, have a dose of animals with these tumblr posts.

- This new Infinity Gauntlet story line from Marvel Comics looks amazing.

- Futurama funko pops! I really, really want the Leela one.

- Pics from the final eps of Mad Men! I am getting insanely excited. Also sad, because this show is my jam.

- Sleater-Kinney's new video stars the Belcher kids! 

- This longer piece on Fifty Shades, Amazon and romance self-publishing is a fascinating dissection of many recent successes in romance and self-publishing.

- A Day of Firsts for Women in Politics is a great feature exploring why this election and new cabinet are so darn important. Yay for new government! We sure as hell have needed it.

A Collection

It’s been almost four years since my first short story was published which, even now, is a bit of a crazy thing to think about. The story, called ‘Shooting Arrows’, centred round a group of three sisters trying to recover from the death of the fourth. It was published in the 86th Issue of Voiceworks.

I was one of those horrible clichés when it comes to writing in that once I started, I found it pretty difficult to stop. Stories uncurled in my mind sometimes faster than I could catch them, and I’ve been really lucky to have had a steady output of work since ‘Shooting Arrows’ was published.

I’ve circled similar themes in my work to that fledgling story – loss and grief, intimacy, sisterhood. They were all separate, original works, until they weren’t. Those sisters from that first story were suddenly banging on walls, knocking on the doors of other stories and asking to be let in. The Elk sisters, Beth and Audrey and Lily and Eve became bigger than their own story.

I wonder if this is the way novels start, or collections are made. If it’s a theme that lets itself in, fixes itself a cup of tea, or if, like me, it was these characters who stole in through closed windows.

As a result, I’ve been reading a lot of collections lately, fitting them together, and generally found four different types.

The Thematic is probably the most common type of collection. Stories that explore and unravel a certain idea or theme – from magic to family, rites of passage and womanhood. Thematic collections can be distinct or abstract, clear in their connection or sometimes not at all.

It’s probably my favourite type too. There’s something really appealing about strange stories with a loose thread – a candy necklace of a book. I recently read Laura Van Den Berg’s What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, a collection pointedly themed by known established myths – loch ness monsters, giant snakes, gods, and how they so easily infiltrate our real lives, whether real or imagined. It’s wonderfully languid, bellying poignancy and a whole lot of hurt. It reminded me of a similarly wonderful themed collection, Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link.

It’s not just magic though. Cate Kennedy’s Like a House on Fire focuses on family’s at turning points, Josephine Rowe’s How a Moth Becomes a Boat is connected by wonderfully insular protagonists. Which leads pretty nicely into the character thread.

The Character Thread is something I love to, and is really what the biggest connection in my own collection has come down to. From Junot Diaz’s This is How You Leave Her to Melissa Banks’ The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing, character threads can almost tease a novel, but by breaking it up into girlfriends as in Diaz’s collection or different moments in a character’s life as Banks’, you get a really compelling cross-section of narrative. A photo album of stories.  

Similar to character, place is becoming increasingly used as the common denominator of a collection. The most obvious example in recent years is Tim Winton’s moving book, The Turning, which unravels a small town through different stories, times and characters. It interweaves pretty seamlessly too – playing on the character thread that can do so many wonderful things for a collection. Similarly, all of Stephen King’s shorts are set in Maine, giving him a universe to continually refer back to and explore.

It doesn’t just have to be a specific place either. Tarcutta Wake by Josephine Rowe doesn’t have settings in common, but the influence of place weaves its way through every story, becoming a theme in and of itself. It’s pretty effective.

Roald Dahl’s collections could arguably be filed back under the thematic with his dark and chilling stories, but that’s really as close as they come. In a lot of ways, his work feels stitched together, making a weird sort of tapestry of stories, each as unique as a patchwork piece. A lot of older short fiction writers operated in this basis. Raymond Carver often themed his work, but it also came under stitches too, as did Flannery O’Connor. This sort of collection perhaps doesn’t work as well today. After all, there’s much less of a market for these short snapshots of narrative – pretty ironic given our culture’s collective attention span.

I like short story collections in every shape they come in, but it’s hard to deny my pull towards certain themes and ideas that unwind in short fiction. The reason Josephine Rowe, Kelly Link and Laura van den Berg appeal to me so totally is that they explore womanhood and loss, intimacy and responsibility. They explore themes that don’t usually make it to novels and shows but, for some reason or another, seem to be thriving currently in short stories.

It’s themes I want to write about. Themes I do write about. My collection, so close to completion, spends time with all of these ideas, and I hope that the Elk sisters are women that readers will connect with too.


What are you working on at the moment? And do any collections stand out for you?

Nice Things


Discovering a new designer or line is pretty akin to magic. I love exploring how people experience and envision clothes as it's so often a reflection on not only them but the way they see the world. Nice Things is, well, exactly that. It's a collection of utterly nice, sweet things with a healthy dose of whimsy. A wry interpretation of Wes Anderson. All in all, really damn nice.

You can view  the full collections over at the website.









Sunday Short: 'Olikoye' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My father’s first child was a girl. He said she was a loud squalling baby who grasped his finger with surprising strength, and he knew it meant she would be tough. But she died at the age of four months. The second, a boy, was not yet four months old before he died. Some people from my father’s family said my mother was a witch, eating her children, trading their innocent hearts in exchange for her own long life. But, at that time, other babies in our village in Edo were dying too. They got sick with watery shit and weak eyes. Some people said the diarrhea was punishment from God. The Christians prayed in church. The Muslims prayed at the mosque. The old people performed sacrifices. Still, babies died, and their tiny still bodies were wrapped in cloth and buried, and it seemed senseless that they had even been born at all.
 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is such a wonderfully evocative writer. She has an uncanny ability for winding up narratives in such a deceptively simple way, cracking open a world so foreign and familiar to so many. It makes for some pretty beautiful short stories, and 'Olikoye' is certainly one of them. A tender, loving portrait of a woman remembering her son's namesake as she gives birth.

You can read 'Olikoye' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie over at the Medium website.

Friday Finds

- These love notes found in books are gorgeous.

- Your week in trailers: Pitch Perfect 2! Orphan Black Season 2!!!!!! Trainwreck looks like a lot of fun. I adore Almost Famous, but haven't loved Cameron Crowe's newer stuff. That said, Aloha looks interesting. Ballet 422 looks amazing.

- Online dating limericks!

- Hipster logo generator!

- And congrats, 50 Shades! This Lego reenactment of your trailer is more compelling than your real one.

- Oh! The Stella Prize longlist this year is the thing dreams are made of. Amazing list.

- This week in cosplay: this Cinderella gown is awesome. This Sailor Moon transformation is the best ever.

- These photographers with their most famous photos are lovely.

- And hey! Start your weekend with this Minister for Men webseries with Gretel Killeen to promote All About Women. Ridiculously funny.

Shop Girl: Lizzie Bennet 'Pride and Prejudice'


Surprisingly, I'm not actually a big re-reader. Once I've read a book, no matter how much I might love it, it usually ends up collecting dust on my bookshelves. That said, there are a few books that I re-read semi-regularly, the Harry Potter series being one (or, well, seven) and Pride and Prejudice is one of the others. It's horribly cliche, but I really do love the story, not just for Mr. Darcy and Lizzie, but for the Bennet sisters so wonderfully orbiting around each other.

Lizzie's always been one of my favourite characters too. She's such a sasspot, wicked intelligent and a great lover of books, so a lot of the things I aspire to be. For the look, I really wanted to go for an empire dress look which aligns with the regency period look of high waist lines and loose skirts, and the boots too are, while not of the style of the era, a great set for walking through muddy fields to sick sisters in.

Lizzie Bennet, Pride and Prejudice 
1. When Dusk Settles Modcloth Dress. $80.
2. Pride & Prejudice Earrings. $25.
3. Pride & Prejudice clutch. $195.
4. Rita Cut Out Boot Rubi Shoes. $50.
5. Chunky Knit Cardigan Topshop. $45.
6. Year 890 Book of Dreams Necklace. $150.

Previous Shop Girl posts:
Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

The Owlish Guide to Digital Writers Festival 2015


It's that time of year again! Festival season is closer to September, but we do have a trickle of festivals at this end of the year, scaffolded mostly by Emerging Writers' Festival in May and Digital Writers' Festival kicking off later in the week. Both are pretty great, with diverse programs, and I look forward to seeing EWF's in the next few months, but for now, let's check out DWF's.

WEDNESDAY 11 FEBRUARY
Early Words: what do I look for in a first chapter has a pretty great line up of talent, from Text Publishers editors to Freshly Squeezed talking about, well, what they look for in a first chapter. This is pretty essential viewing for anyone working on a longform work and should be pretty educational and compelling.

Writers' Night School: screenwriting for the YouTube generation. Screenwriting! Webseries!

FRIDAY 13 FEBRUARY
#blasphemy! Free speech in the Asia Pacific is an interesting topic, but it's backed by some really compelling voices in Australian writing, including Andre Dao and Eleanor Jackson (her poem with Betsy Turcott She Stole My Every Rock and Roll is one of my favourites).

SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY
Dedicated: Australian writers get romantic looks like a hell of a lot of fun. Plus what better way to spend Valentines Day?

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY
Trapped Inside the Computer: an interview inside a videogame. I'm generally quite interested in narrative and writing around videogames and interactive storytelling, so this one's pretty high up on my list to check out. It should be good for anyone interested in different mediums of writing too.

Interactive Archive sounds pretty darn compelling too. The project currently seems pretty ambiguous, but a live, multimedia narrative event is often something to bookmark.

MONDAY 16 FEBRUARY
Why Writers Should Learn to Code and How to Get Started. Programming fundamentals for non-programmers! It's always a good idea to equip yourself with skills, no matter how relevant or irrelevant they might seem to your job. As our world becomes more and more digital too, being able to code, or at least understand, will become more of a necessary skill. This looks like a pretty great starting point for that.

TUESDAY 17 FEBRUARY
DWF X Pozible: Writers' New Age Toolkit - community, crowdfunding and commercialisation. Neil Gaiman said at World Fantasy last year that Kickstarter is now the third largest publisher of graphic novels. The reality and implications of crowdfunding these days is enormous, so this session is an excellent one for rounding out any writer's knowledge in the program.

WEDNESDAY 18 FEBRUARY
Livejournal / Liejournal sounds like a lot of fun, and should be based on the talent. Michelle Law and Elizabeth Flux are always great

THURSDAY 19 FEBRUARY
Publishing on the Feed: social media as a publishing platform is posing a really interesting question and one that opens up a conversation on the way we engage with writing and publishing. Plus Patrick Lenton's always

SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY
Data Journalism. I don't know much about it, but hoboy, data is something I totally love.

There are a few other programs worth checking out. I love the 20 Minute Cities stream which takes us through the International Cities of Literature. It's cultural tourism at it's most accessible.White Night: a magazine in a night  seems very cool, but is something we've seen before with if:book Australia's 24 Hour Book and The Lifted Brow's issue produced at Melbourne Writers Festival. That said, it's a compelling project and different enough to hopefully further these conversations around the constraints of creative output and input.

All and all, a pretty cool program! You can check out the whole thing over at the website.

Sunday Short: 'All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to Go' by Elmo Keep

A well-known effect on astronauts out on long missions is the dip at the halfway point, when the excitement has worn off and the return home seems unbearably distant. There is no way to know how a human mind will encounter passing the threshold of no return, when the Earth recedes from sight, and the pitch black enormity of deep space and the impossibility of ever turning back sinks in.
I've recommended Elmo Keep's work as a part of this Sunday Shorts series before, and honestly, I think she's one of Australia's best freelance writers working today. She's an immensely talented writer capable of making intense, academic topics accessible and emotionally engaging. It's an amazing skill to have. 'All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to Go' is an incredible piece of writing detailing the Mars One project and the people attracted to it.

You can read 'All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to Go' over on Medium.

Friday Finds

Oh, man. I was sick this week and spent two days watching the entire series' of In the Flesh, an amazing BBC3 zombie drama series. It was such a beautifully taut and emotive show that played with stigmas on sexuality and explored discrimination in such a compelling way. Highly recommend!

Anywho, your regular Friday Finds.
- Your week in trailers: Game of Thrones season 5! The first Daredevil trailer!! I love Madame Bovary, so this adaptation with Mia Wasikowska and Ezra Miller are hitting my buttons. Angelica looks really interesting. Amira and Sam and Kumiko the Treasure Hunter both look straight up delightful.


- These Russian fairytales recreated in gorgeous photographs are incredible.





This piece on the evolution of the artist over time and the current iteration of them is really fascinating and poses a lot of questions about craft, creativity and audience.

Need Supply Co. Pre-Spring 2015


Need Supply Co.'s pre-spring collection is basically what I'd want my wardrobe to be if I was, y'know, not 5'2. It's such lovely, deep colours and pretty silhouettes (I always love mish-mashes of tight and loose). It's straight up peachy. 

  


  
 


Wash the dirt, a hard day's work


February 2015 by Sophie Overett on Grooveshark
January in Five (looking back)
1. I've been keeping to one of my unofficial new year's resolutions of seeing a lot more of friends. It's made me a lot more responsible in time management which is something I hope I can keep up. Plus it totally reminds me of all the ways I love my friends.

2.  I hit almost all of my writing goals in January too. I submit to nine different things - six short stories and three projects / EOI's. I'm hopeful about a few of them, but I'm trying to not dwell too much on work that's in that limbo when put with a publisher or journal and instead propel forwards with work.

3. On that note, I wrote very little on longer length projects in January. I wrote a lot more in the way of short fiction and short non-fiction pieces which I think is a good way to start the year. Being able to finish and submit work within a few weeks as opposed to, y'know, the forever and a half it takes with novels, has been a really good feeling. It's also helped me capture some of that momentum.

4. My sister's also moved back to Queensland. Her new place is only a half hour from me which is a really nice feeling. I know they say you don't know what you've got til it's gone, but I really think you don't know what you've been missing until you get it back.

5. Totally unrelated: Triple J's Hottest 100 was a bit of a dud list this year. That said, it also introduced me to the wonderful Thelma Plum. Unfortunately, she wasn't on Grooveshark, but I've included her in my Feb mixtape anyway because she's straight up great. Check out How Much Does Your Love Cost below. 


So my January wasn't too crazy-eventful. It actually feels like one of the few times I've actually eased into a  year. February's already looking busier. I'm back to work on one of the novels, and my QLA fellowship is set to kick off (!!!) Digital Writers Festival's on, and there are some great book launches and events happening around Brisbane which I'll be heading towards, including Yarn and Riverbend Poetry Series

How about you? What do you have planned for February?

Sunday Short: 'I Can See Right Through You' by Kelly Link

Meggie’s type? The funny thing is, Meggie’s lovers all look like the demon lover. More like the demon lover, he admits it, than he does. He and Meggie are both older now, but the world is full of beautiful black-haired boys and golden girls. Really, that’s the problem.
New Kelly Link stories are always a cause for celebration. Or, well. To curl up in a chair and get reading. 'I Can See Right Through You' is a wonderful, original ghost story, bite and bluster until it isn't. Until it's something worming it's way into your belly and stirring up some dread. It's a magic only Link seems able to conjure.

You can read 'I Can See Right Through You' by Kelly Link over on McSweeneys.