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‘Journalism was a trade you could go into and if you were any good at it you were a reasonably prosperous member of the community ... that’s just no longer the case.’ — David Marr Journalists make a living out of telling other people's stories. Rarely are we shown a glimpse of their doubts and vulnerabilities, their hopes and fears for the future. It's time we hear this side of the story. Newsrooms, the engine rooms of reporting, have shrunk. The great digital disruption of the twentieth century has shattered newspapers, radio and television. Journalism jobs, once considered safe for life, have simply disappeared. Captivating yet devastating, Upheaval is an under-the-hood look at Australian journalism as it faces seismic changes. Sharing first-hand stories from Australia's top journalists — including David Marr, Amanda Meade, George Megalogenis and more — Upheaval reveals the highs and the lows of those who were there to see it all.
'At both ends of the world, I have found confusion and profound disagreement about how to read the story of the past, about who should write or speak it, and what parts of it should be written or spoken about at all.' Amnesia Road is a compelling literary examination of historic violence in rural areas of Australia and Spain. It is also an unashamed celebration of the beautiful landscapes where this violence has been carried out. Travelling and writing across two locations – the seldom-visited mulga plains of south-west Queensland and the backroads of rural Andalusia – award-winning Australian Hispanist Luke Stegemann uncovers neglected history and its many neglected victims, and asks wh...
The French have long been part of the Australian story. From talented gold fields photographer Antoine Fauchery and infighting in the upper echelons of Melbourne society as to who should run Alliance Française to the Playoust family whose Australian-born sons enlisted with the French army in the First World War. French Connection paints an intricate portrait of the complex connections between the two nations. Alexis Bergantz provides a fascinating insight into how the idea of France influenced a new colony anxious to prove itself. Eager to demarcate themselves from Britain, many Australians saw France as a more cosmopolitan – and decadent – alternative to a stodgy Victorian world order....
If we are to take seriously the need for telling the truth about our history, we must start at first principles. What if the sovereignty of the First Nations was recognised by European international law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? What if the audacious British annexation of a whole continent was not seen as acceptable at the time and the colonial office in Britain understood that 'peaceful settlement' was a fiction? If the 1901 parliament did not have control of the whole continent, particularly the North, by what right could the new nation claim it? The historical record shows that the argument of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is stronger than many people imagine and th...
“The Southern Ocean is a wild and elusive place, an ocean like no other. With its waters lying between the Antarctic continent and the southern coastlines of Australia, New Zealand, South America, and South Africa, it is the most remote and inaccessible part of the planetary ocean, the only part that flows around Earth unimpeded by any landmass. It is notorious amongst sailors for its tempestuous winds and hazardous fog and ice. Yet it is a difficult ocean to pin down. Its southern boundary, defined by the icy continent of Antarctica, is constantly moving in a seasonal dance of freeze and thaw. To the north, its waters meet and mingle with those of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans ...
The Rapids is an exploration of manic depression (also known as bipolar disorder). With reflections on artists such as Carrie Fisher, Kanye West, Saul Bellow, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Spalding Gray, Sam Twyford-Moore takes readers on a literary and cultural tour of mania and what it means to live with a diagnosis of "bipolarity" in contemporary society. He also looks at the condition in our digital world, where someone’s manic episode can unfold live in real time, watched by millions. His own story, told unflinchingly, is shocking and sometimes darkly comic. It gives the book an edge that is not always comfortable but full of insight and empathy. Smart, lively, and well-researched, The Rapids manages to be both a wild ride and introspective at once, exploring a condition that touches thousands of people, directly or indirectly.
'Van Badham may have one of the biggest and quickest minds in Australia, but it’s her her huge heart that takes the stage. Not unlike Van, Banging Denmark is a play that speaks its mind with edge, wit and heart. By the end of it you can’t help but feel enraged, endeared and ultimately, empowered. Van Badham has created the ultimate political rom-com, a battle of the sexes that’s an entertaining aphrodisiac.’ — Nakkiah Lui Jake Newhouse is a pickup artist who sells seduction techniques to the lovelorn men of the internet. Ish Madigan is a feminist academic whose life’s been destroyed by male internet trolls. They are natural enemies...until Jake grows desperate for a favour. He’s developed a crush on a Danish librarian who’s immune to his games, and offers Ish a cool $50 000 to teach him her ways of feminist-friendly persuasion. She may be broke, but can she do it? Will he stand it? And has anyone thought to consult the librarian?! Van Badham throws a bomb at the rom-com in a badly-behaved comedy of sex, love, modern manners and ancient vanities. Banging Denmark is breathless, relentless and a laugh-out-loud battle of the sexless.
A book on technique, style, craft and manners for everyone who writes and wants to do it better. It is a manual of good diction, composition, sentence craft, paragraph design, structure and planning. Enriched by examples of fine prose from great writers including Tim Winton; flush with exercises informed by the author's expertise in both creative writing and functional prose; and written with flair, The Little Red Writing Book is a lively and readable guide to lively and readable writing.
Garry Wotherspoon’s Gay Sydney: A History is an updated version of his 1991 classic, City of the Plain: History of a Gay Sub-culture, written in the midst of the AIDS crisis. In this vivid book Wotherspoon traces the shifts that have occurred since then, including majority support for marriage equality and anti-discrimination legislation. He also ponders the parallel evaporation of a distinctly gay sensibility and the disappearance of once-packed gay bars that have now become cafes and gyms. This book also tells the story of gay Sydney across a century, looking at secret, underground gay life, the never-ending debates about sex in society and the role of social movements in the ’60 and ’70s in effecting social change.
Writers, musicians, filmmakers, gamers, lawyers and academics talk about why copyright matters to them – or doesn’t. We expect to be able to log on and read, watch or listen to anything, anywhere, anytime. Then copy it, share it, quote it, sample it, remix it. Does this leave writers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, artists, and software and game developers with any rights at all? Have we forgotten how to pay for content? Are big corporations and copyright lawyers the only ones making money? Or are we looking in the wrong direction as illegal downloading becomes the biggest industry of all and copyright violation a way of life? In this provocative book John Birmingham, Linda Jaivin, Marc Fennell, Clem Bastow, Lindy Morrison, Imogen Banks, Dan Hunter, Angela Bowne and others fire up the copyright debate like never before.