AustLit

'Louis Nowra is one of Australia’s major writers. He has written plays, film and radio scripts, as well as fiction, essays, memoir and libretti, and his publishing list comprises dozens of works. Plays such as Radiance, Summer of the Aliens and Così have been performed and filmed and studied for decades, while his fiction was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award. He characteristically focuses on unlikely communities, renegade spirits and fugitive moments of grace. His Lewis Trilogy of plays – Summer of the Aliens, Così and This Much Is True – has just opened at SBW Stables Theatre, Sydney, in a production by Griffin Theatre Company.' (Introduction)

'For artist and writer Jennifer Higgie, feminist art historian Griselda Pollock revealed the structural exclusion of women artists and their work. By Kate Holden.' 

'Mary Finsterer is an Australian composer who is internationally respected and locally cherished for her many works, including the soundtracks to Die Hard 4 (2007) and Shirley Barrett’s 2010 film South Solitary, the opera Biographica (2017), written with librettist Tom Wright, Catch (2004), an album of her award-winning work released through ABC Classics/Universal, and innumerable commissions for ensembles, orchestras and residencies. She has had a long teaching career and received many prestigious awards. Her latest project, the innovative opera Antarctica, also written with Wright, debuted at the Holland Festival this year and will have its Australian premiere at the Sydney Festival in January.' (Introduction)    

'Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life... but I do so urged by a necessity of truthtelling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth; here, may be one who knows a section; and there, one who knows another section; but to the whole picture not one is initiated.' (Introduction)

'For First Nations theatre-maker Glenn Shea, the comedy series Basically Black remains as fresh and radical as when it premiered in 1973. By Kate Holden.'

'Jacob Boehme is an award-winning, multidisciplinary artist who began in dance and is now a writer, puppeteer, visual theatre-maker, choreographer, producer and festival director. He wrote and performed the critically acclaimed dance work Blood on the Dance Floor and is artistic director of the Wild Dog project in South Australia. Boehme is a proud man of the Narangga people from the Yorke Peninsula and Kaurna people from Adelaide. As director of First Nations programs at Sydney’s Carriageworks, he is presenting a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Black Theatre, Party | Protest | Remember, on November 12.' (Introduction) 

'Dr Joëlle Gergis is an esteemed Eureka Prize-winning climate scientist and one of the co-authors of the current Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She is also the author of Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia (2018) and Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope (released last month). She is a frequent media commentator, urgently describing the crisis facing Earth and the emotional cost to the scientists who confront it more closely than most of us.' (Introduction)

'Robert Lukins is a Melbourne-based fiction author and freelance writer whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Overland, Broadsheet, Crikey, The Big Issue. His 2018 debut novel, The Everlasting Sunday, was set in the freezing English winter of 1962 in a reformatory boys’ school. His second, Loveland, will be released by Allen & Unwin next month.' (Introduction)

'We live to the sound of water, quiet water, moving, not much.

'The world was full and noisy and now it is so quiet. We have come here to hide and haven, away from streets of grey and black and steel, whirling colours, particulate vision: the Brownian motion of small various things, from the mosaic world of normal life and an invisible pathogen that dusts it, to this place where I can fill my eye line with only a few things.'  (Introduction)

'Author Charlotte Wood is best known for her multi-awarded Animal People (2011), her Stella Prize-winning novel The Natural Way of Things (2015), her Stella-shortlisted The Weekend (2019), and three other highly praised novels. Much of her work explores the creative process through anthology, mentorship and podcasts, and she’s known for her deep engagement with the literary community. Her new book, The Luminous Solution: Creativity, Resilience and the Inner Life, has just been published by Allen & Unwin. Wood was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2019. She’s currently at work on a new novel.' (Introduction)

'Last week, Tasmanian writer Amanda Lohrey won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her eighth book of fiction, The Labyrinth. It tells the story of Erica Marsden, who moves to a small coastal town near where her mentally disturbed artist son is jailed for homicidal negligence. Two of Lohrey’s previous novels were shortlisted for the prize and she has either won or been shortlisted for the Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and the 2012 Patrick White Award.'  (Introduction)

'Last year, author Toni Jordan decided to write fiction full-time, in order to pursue her goal of subverting capitalism by making people feel less miserable. She is editing her sixth book and has started writing the next one.'

'One of the pioneers of Indigenous presence on screen, Rhoda Roberts has spent her life breaking barriers for First Nations artists. But with her new job, she may finally find some time for her own art. By Kate Holden.'

Musician Ben Salter is ensconced in a studio at MONA, making music in front of the museum’s patrons as a kind of performance art. By Kate Holden.