Five facts you really should know about aphorisms… I love aphorisms (however, please note: this is not one of the five facts you really should know about them). They’re succinct summations of observation that make you think and sometimes see the world in a different light. Seeing life a different…
For those who could not be there… Saturday, 21st May 2011 was the day set by many doomsday Christians as the beginning of Armageddon, or the Rapture – the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people. It was also the day set for the 2010 Aurealis Awards. As far…
In Today’s Genre-Sensitive Publishing World, Might George Orwell Be *gasp* Unreadable? Ever since ‘genre’ was invented (by Plato and Aristotle, no less, when they divided ancient Greek literature into drama, poetry or prose), theorists have philosophized about the concept of genre, evolving and expanding it such that, today, genre and…
Copying. It’s a nasty word that hasn’t changed in meaning since the 1st century, when the Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martialis used the Latin word plagiarius (literally ‘kidnapper’) to complain that another poet had “kidnapped his verses”. When I was at school, the repercussions of copying were severe, and not…
WARNING: due to the astounding level of input from a gargantuan range of fantastic Australian authors, this blog has essay-length proportions. What does it mean to be a writer living in Australia in 2011? Does our glorious country inform what we write, or the way we write it? Does it…
A recent post on io9.com asked what science fiction could tell us about the future of social media: http://io9.com/#!5781908. Annalee Newitz started the post by pointing out that, right now, you are reading a piece of social media, which can be passed around various social networks and thus be read…
SPOILER ALERT: Jennifer Byrne Presents “Fantasy Panel Special” will not air until 12 July 2011. Last week, I watched a live recording of “Jennifer Byrne Presents” with Lev Grossman, Matthew Reilly, Jennifer Rowe and Fiona McIntosh. They were discussing the recent marginalisation of fantasy from mainstream fiction, ‘recent’ since bookshops…
