English literary critic Cyril Connelly once wrote “There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall”, giving credence to the theory that having young children negatively affects an artists’ ability to create art. ThisRead more…
On the ‘reasonable person’ as a masculine construct
Australian law is built on its allowance of discretion. Often, this discretion is seen as a darling of the left – critiqued by the right as unfairly promoting instances of ‘judicial activism’ (as seen in Wik V Queensland, for example,Read more…
Profile : Izzy Roberts-Orr, festival director extraordinaire
Izzy Roberts-Orr is kind of awe-inspiring. She is a writer, theatre maker, podcaster and also the Artistic Director and Co-CEO of the Emerging Writers’ Festival (EWF) EWF also run the Digital Writers’ Festival which is on RIGHT NOW and accessibleRead more…
Biological justifications for oppression: Casual sex
Biology has been historically used as a justification for problematic and oppressive arguments. Science was used by the Nazis to justify the extermination of ‘inferior’ races. Ever since the dawn of the era of Enlightenment and subsequent increased secularisation ofRead more…
Why Taylor Swift disappoints in Trump’s Dystopia
I don’t like Taylor Swift. Her music isn’t relevant to this assessment. I don’t like her. The person. Or, allowing that she is an extremely clever performer adept at constructing a version of herself for public consumption, I don’t likeRead more…
Activism and the cultural cringe: some things never change.
Following the recent violence committed by white supremacists in Charlottesville, nominally over the removal/non-removal of “historical” confederate statutes, a similar debate has been imported to Australia. In August, a prominent statute of Captain Cook in Hyde Park, Sydney, was inscribed/vandalisedRead more…
Skywhale | Things That Helped
Below is an extract from Things That Helped, Jessica Friedmann, Scribe Publications 2017. Jessica is delivering a special workshop ‘Writing Life, Writing Self’, on Sun 8 Oct, 2-5pm, Canberra, presented by the Feminist Writers Festival. More info is here. __ The wind on the hillRead more…
Clothing and self-objectification
These days, picking clothes from my wardrobe has become an activity fraught with symbolism and memories. Daily I stand in front of my wardrobe and finger the various fabrics, the silks and the lace, lined neatly in rows form navyRead more…
Living at college in ignorance and bliss
In Latin, alma mater means nurturing mother. In so many ways, the residential college I attended was my nurturing mother. It was also the sexy older sister: seemingly confident and knowing, yet knowing so little. I started to become whoRead more…
Queer communities: interview with Jessica Simps
Having recently moved to Montreal to study for the next six months, I didn’t have much of a background on its queer scene, except a vague notion that it is fairly LBGTQI+ friendly. In fact I managed to arrive justRead more…