This image is one of five illustrations Jon Bauer did for the 1908 publication of Helena Nyblom’s Svanhamnen. Bauer was a wonderful Swedish artist and illustrator, best known for his illustrations of folk and fairy tales. His detailed, imaginative and emotionally engaging compositions influenced other artists working on children’s illustration, notably Arthur Rackham, Kay Neilsen…
Category: On Reading
Other People’s Words
Some people like the way babies and young children grapple with language, working hard to make sense of the collision between the world of experience and the world of their limited vocabularies and grasp of grammar. I also love the unexpected beauty of things people say: overheard at bus stops, mispelled in emails, and elsewhere….
April Means … Porridge
This morning, it was cool enough – after a weekend of drizzling rain, including a blissful Sunday afternoon by the fire – to break out the oats. There’s something wonderfully satisfying about the first bowl of porridge for the year. The winter veges are planted, the grass has stopped growing at a speed of knots,…
On visiting the Library
Lots of people love and adore the new SLQ site, with its wide open architecture and friendly flow-through, open-air spaces full of light and air, but I have to admit that I am a luddite, a retrophile, and it has taken me a while to learn to appreciate its clean, modern lines. All that concrete,…
Gender and the Australian Literary Scene
I’ve started doing some number crunching on gender in the Australian literary scene, starting with a breakdown of who’s reviewed, who’s reviewing, etc in some key Australian magazines and newspapers. I’ve spent many a Saturday morning griping about the gender bias I perceived in the literary pages, and saying I would do some number crunching…
John Birmingham Stands Up
Last night, we went to see John Birmingham do a gig at the Maleny Community Centre. Part of a series of ‘in conversations’ with writers, organised by the local author Steven Lang, supported by Arts Queensland, and run under the title ‘Outspoken’. Birmo is an engaging, funny and relaxed speaker: easy to like, easy to…
On Finishing and Funambules
I, like everybody else, have a certain fear of heights and I have to be very careful when I am in the clouds but it is also what I love, it is my domain, so when you love something you don’t have fear. Philippe Petit (1949–) Recently, I completed a novel I had been working…
Polja
I just got an email from the delightful NataĊĦa, to let me know that one of my short stories is part of a small collection that have been translated into Serbian! You can access it online at Polja, where my story appears under the author name ‘Nik Berk’, along with other Australian writers such as…
I’m nothing and the words are everything
I adore the Paris Review’s ‘Art of Fiction’ interviews. Long, rambling, instructional, irrelevant, earnest and tragic, befuddling and enlightening. They bring out the best and the worst in their subjects, allowing them the luxury of their own words about their own writing. In the Winter 2010 Issue of Paris Review, there’s an interview with one…
Fire Diary
Last night, I had the pleasure of launching Mark Tredinnick’s book of poetry, Fire Diary, at Avid Reader in West End. It was a beautiful, early summer evening. As usual, Avid Reader was the perfect venue: a real bookshop, filled to bursting with books of all kinds, from poetry to philosophy, architecture, art, politics, biography…