Culture

Such a lazy conspiratorial bent towards Australian publishing camouflages what I and many of my colleagues believe is an important debate we should be having about barriers to entry and supporting local writing.

It took Dunham eight-and-a-half years to write her follow-up—and it shows. With the benefit of hindsight and time away from the bright spotlight that swallowed Dunham during her Girls years, she writes about that time in her life with a clarity, self-awareness and bittersweet wit.

Frankness comes before fiction in Debra Adelaide’s homage to her late friend in When I’m Sixty-Four.

In our fast-paced attention economy, how did On the Calculation of Volume, a ruminative series about a woman living the same day on repeat, become an international bestseller?

Caro Claire Burke’s viral Yesteryear picks apart the MAGA-coded return to ‘traditional values’ with varying success.

It was only going to be a matter of time before AI wormed its way out of the historic confines of science fiction and into the realm of the social realist novel.

Eating without inhibition and refusing to eat at all may seem like opposites, but in fiction they can function in the similar ways: both destabilise systems that seek to discipline the female body.

‘A writer in midlife can have more steel, more tenacity and be more compelled to take risks because there’s nothing to lose.’

‘Is Wuthering Heights amoral?’ asked the London Review of Books podcast late last year. Of course, and deliberately so, we evidently needed reminding.

In the follow-up to her internationally bestselling memoir, Jennette McCurdy takes the readers on a squeamish journey of teenage lust in an inegalitarian world.

Human creativity sets itself apart from AI slop in this playful comic-essay hybrid on artmaking—the runner-up of the KYD Creative Non-Fiction Prize 2025.

The social media melee is hurting leftist organising, leaving us attacking each other rather than working together.

A recent wave of fiction about the corporate world draws on the gothic and the weird to expose the failed promises of modern life.

RF Kuang’s blockbuster Katabasis is a reminder that the modern university sector is something of a hellscape—but it doesn’t have to be this way.

For a long time, I felt like the books I consumed needed to be worthy. Seeking pleasure instead has reminded me why I fell in love with words in the first place.

As a senior book editor and a reformed lit snob, I’ve watched the rise of the romantasy with interest. Beyond sex and dragons, the revitalisation of genre fiction has hidden potential.

Once upon a time, the marriage plot served the inevitable happy ending. What happens when the institution—and with it, the tidy narrative—slips out of fashion?

An experienced senior editor explores the dire state of the publishing industry.

An iPhone detox didn’t make me more productive, but I did feel free. I don’t want to wake up one day and realise that my most devoted relationship has been with a screen.

A subscription to the world’s most popular streaming service comes with artist exploitation, pseudoscience and the funnelling of profits into the war machine.

Nightclubs were a crucial part of my queer millennial coming-of-age. Current trends show a global decline in nightclubs, but is Gen Z really to blame?

I came close to writing a hatchet job once, and I was confused by how popular the piece became online. Criticism should offer more than a cut-throat execution.

Carving out a sustainable career as a freelance writer requires incredible tenacity, but as a recent memoir shows, it wasn’t always this hard.

Thomas Vowles’s Our New Gods offers a sentimental queer coming-of-age story in wolf’s clothing.

My manuscript won a big prize and increased the pressure for literary success. But I had to put it—and me—out of its misery.

In the absence of a thriving avant-garde, Dominic Amerena’s I Want Everything adds to the local tradition of imagined alternative histories.

I quit my smartphone and became attuned to a ‘wood-wide web’ under threat.

Will Albanese’s astonishing election victory mean Labor will finally address wealth inequality in Australia?

Male friendship becomes violent on the road in Vijay Khurana’s debut novel.

Do away with blurbs? I don’t think so.

Misogyny is flourishing. What do emotions have to do with it?

At turns entertaining and bemusing, rewatching ABC TV’s book show highlights a scarcity of televised arts criticism.

Natasha Rai’s queer coming-of-age story provides a fresh, heartfelt take on the migrant narrative.

Ma protect me. As I try to get back to you.

Creative Australia’s troubling act of censorship signals an authoritarian turn we can’t ignore.

Like a stockwhip, Blak realities crack through the fictions of Australia’s colonial identity.

Josie McSkimming’s memoir illuminates the life of her famous sister, Dorothy Porter.

A recent dating trend reveals what’s missing in modern romance.

Is it possible to balance a creative life with a day job?

How off-brand Ozempic led me into a state of pharmacological nirvana.

History fades in Sean Reynolds’ photographic collection Melbourne Ghost Signs.

Shaeden Berry’s debut novel digs deep into a community to find hidden truths.

I learned the hard way that more needs to be done to prevent AFL head injuries.

Memoir Showcase: As a professional film reviewer, my amateur writing can feel like a dirty secret.

My fashion writing is fuelled by a passion for ethical clothing but also a family legacy that has sustainability at its heart.

Jumaana Abdu’s startling debut novel doesn’t explain Islam but explores its depths.

An encounter with Tori Amos placed Jack Colwell firmly among the super fans.

Critics Campus 2024: Alice Bellette unpacks Andy Burkitt’s horror comedy, The Organist.

Critics Campus 2024: Isabella Gullifer-Laurie speaks to Audrey Lam about her library-set experimental feature, Us and the Night.

Critics Campus 2024: Dylan Rowen on Jane Schoenbrun’s horror-infused I Saw the TV Glow.

Critics Campus 2024: Four perspectives on Pedro Freire’s resonant portrait Malu

Critics Campus 2024: Four perspectives on Ena Sendijarević’s acidic satire Sweet Dreams

In an expansive polyphonic reminiscent of Zadie Smith and Tash Aw, Raeden Richardson’s debut novel captures the city’s essence through its outcasts.

Sally Rooney’s much-anticipated fourth novel, Intermezzo, looks for a way out of the structures that bind us from within.

Growing up, my Wiradjuri heritage lingered in the background, just out of reach. Writing my first novel helped me connect to my ancestors, culture and language.

The cost-of-living crisis and the loneliness epidemic collide as Australians are increasingly priced out of a seat at their local watering hole.

A mother-daughter bond is tested in Michelle See-Tho’s exploration of the idiosyncracies of being a Chinese-Malaysian girl growing up in late-90s Australia.

From the Archive: It’s a simple, humorous meme—queer people can’t sit properly. But queer representations in film and television suggest something more radical.

A yearning for offline living and communion with nature explains the enduring appeal of the cowboy in the modern age.

Jordan Prosser’s debut novel offers mind-bending visions of the future. But beneath its rock’n’roll exterior lies a satire of contemporary Australian conservatism.

Early web aesthetics are trending. But beyond comforting kitsch, retromania exposes today’s cultural stagnation and the limitations of surveillance capitalism.

Heartbreak and tragedy mark Khin Myint’s searing memoir. Underpinning grief and a sense of dislocation is a lifetime of marginalisation as a mixed-race Australian.

Housing insecurity has been a theme of Australian cinema for decades. Comparing a cult classic with a comedic new release reveals the stark reality of the current rental crisis.

Cher Tan’s essay collection Peripathetic resists the clichés of internet writing by leaning into the propulsive and boundary-crossing nature of the digital, the literary and IRL.

Speculation has become enticing entertainment in the attention economy. From the dark corners of QAnon to Taylor Swift’s Easter eggs, even the most innocuous theories have the potential to radicalise.

Non-fiction books require intensive fact-checking. But in an industry without the same code of conduct as media journalism, accuracy and veracity hinges on trust between publishers and their authors—with occasional perilous consequences.

Abbey Lay’s debut novel joins a rich canon of literature that explores the complexity of intimacy between young women. The exhilirating possibilities of adolescence buzz through this suburban-set Australian coming-of-age story.

Bri Lee is a rare Australian literary multihyphenate: bestselling author, public intellectual, activist and social media influencer. Given her knack for brand building, her debut novel offers a self-aware yet lukewarm parody of the uneasy relationship between art and money.

As the death toll in Gaza continues to mount, the arts world has started to fracture along sectarian lines. Recent attempts to censor events programming reveal the way that money, politics and power increasingly intervene in our national culture.

Blak sovereignty is centred in Mykaela Saunders’ inventive new short story collection. Her experiments in form, philosophy and genre offer a visionary exploration of the Tweed Goori community to which she belongs.

To examine one’s mental health in literature is to do the difficult work of overcoming shame and transforming the ineffable into words. Two new releases break form to share personal stories that hold room for ambiguities of the mind.

The events of 2020 gave rise to anti-racist reading lists that transformed publishing. Not satisfied with a waning ‘trend’, I teamed up with a friend to establish a bookshop that platforms stories by racially diverse authors.

Amy Brown’s debut offers an original literary triptych that pushes beyond the mythology of Miles Franklin. This exceptional novel interrogates what it means for women to accept or reject a conventional life.

For migrants to Australia, the beach can feel like an unsafe or unwelcoming place. But learning to swim later in life teaches lessons in capability, survival and community.

Master storyteller Tony Birch pushes the use of extraneous detail to new limits in his latest exploration of the lives of the working class.

There’s something exciting about coming across an advanced reading copy of a book—these imperfect and sometimes highly covetable unproofed editions are a testament to human labour behind literature.

Tell Her She’s Dreamin’, Stone Yard Devotional, Strangely Enough

Prima Facie, Edenglassie, Good Material

‘I knew in that moment, although not consciously, that you would always be there for me, that you would put my needs over your own, and that I could always, always rely on you. I can only hope to do the same for you now.’

In medieval times, saints starved themselves in a quest for piety. These girls’ tragic craving for something beyond their earthly selves illuminates the painful disembodied distortions that can motivate disordered eating.

As a genocide unfolds in Gaza, I’ve thought more about being Jewish than ever before in my life. Never have I felt more connected to my Judaism or more ashamed of the government of the country that claims to represent me.

New Critic: Zadie Smith’s latest book satirises 19th-century British history and literature to skewer nostalgia and highlight national delusions about race and imperialism.

The Modern, Premonition, Gunflower

In a search to understand the hero of my novel, a much-maligned historical figure of a medieval saga, I travelled to Iceland. As I wandered through the landscapes of her life, I faced the limits of what it means to inhabit the point of view of a character.

Magdalena McGuire plumbs the surreal and the mundane in her debut short story collection on the peculiar nature of maternal caregiving.

Four Dogs Missing, Firelight, Something Bad is Going to Happen

Trepanation is a procedure both ancient and mystifying. Combing through history, my fascination with this extreme practice leads me to the limits of what it means to know.

New Critic: Amid the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people, Sara M Saleh’s multigenerational saga melds fiction and activism in haste to illuminate the diasporic condition.

From The Bell Jar to Bella Hadid, the ‘sad girl’ is a potent symbol of feminine suffering. But just as the trope reaches its pinnacle in pop culture, its icons have begun to abandon it, making way for more multi-dimensional understandings of womanhood.

Maryam Tafakory’s Mast-del and Rajee Samarasinghe’s Lotus-Eyed Girl

Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day

Four perspectives on Marley McDonald and Brian Becker’s debut documentary Time Bomb Y2K

In an age of hypervisibility and surveillance, the confessional mode has been trending. While opacity may seem counterintuitive in the quest for authentic representations, art that embraces the unknown can offer nuanced understandings of the world.

A Real Piece of Work, Serengotti, Pink Slime

In the winner of the KYD Creative Non-Fiction Prize 2023, life seems a blurred line of consequences.

Genre fiction is often looked down upon for its adherence to established plot beats. But as a fantasy writer, I celebrate these ‘predictable’ narrative structures because they are powerful modes to explore—and reshape—our understanding of the world.

New Critic: Award-winning writer Anna Funder inserts her own story into that of the overlooked literary wife. Yet in a book ostensibly concerned with patriarchy and gendered labour, how much—perhaps intentionally—is left out?

Roseghetto, The Scope of Permissibility, Audition

New Critic: Brandon Taylor returns to a university setting in The Late Americans, putting society under a microscope in this subversive exploration of class, race and sex.

As an editor, my role is to look over every word with a discerning and scrupulous eye. As a writer, it’s hard to switch the critical mind off.

I’ve connected with my Elders and learned my culture using digital technologies. People often see social media as an inauthentic way to gain community and knowledge, but the internet has a place in the reclamation and continuation of First Nations traditions.

As an aspiring fiction author, I’ve been warned that readers are showing ‘apocalypse fatigue’. As world events blur the lines between realism and what was once the realm of speculative fiction, why aren’t the big issues of our times the ‘next big thing’ in publishing?

After the Rain, Yellowface, Eta Draconis

When my memoir was published, I faced the reality that my perspective wasn’t the only truth. Writing about others raises complex ethical questions, but we must first consider the inherent asymmetry of power when we capture our version of events on the page.

During lockdown, I spent countless hours ‘cosy’ gaming. I’ve become a big fan of the recent trend of video games, books and digital media that provide gentle escapism, but there’s something dystopian about this increasingly popular genre.

For a long time, I suffered from debilitating pain caused by endometriosis and other reproductive health issues. In the lead-up to my hysterectomy, I mourned that pop culture has so few representations of the physical realities experienced by so many.

In a growing trend of ‘eat the rich’ narratives, the hit HBO television show places the media elite under scrutiny. This family saga of Shakespearean proportions, where even the winners are losers, exposes the underbelly of U.S. exceptionalism.

New Critic: In Aleksandar Hemon’s masterful novel, two men meet amid the brutality of WWI. Forgotten victims are brought into focus in this epic saga about connection amid displacement.

Australian fiction has long been dominated by the realist novel. A new wave of writers continue the avant-garde tradition—but are experimental and offbeat stories always destined to be relegated to a literary niche? 

New Critic: In Isabella Hammad’s second novel, a West Bank theatre group stages Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The personal and political intertwine in this exploration of the possibilities and limits of art under occupation.

The Albatross, Anam, Greek Lessons

In a 1946 essay, George Orwell compared reading to other forms of recreation. Today, with so much competing for our money, attention and time, it bears re-asking—are books still one of the cheapest pleasures?

When reading books on motherhood, it’s difficult not to connect them to your own experiences. Laura McPhee-Browne’s Little Plum demonstrates the power of fiction to slice open the quotidian to reveal the viscera of what it means to bear children.

Stoicism has had a popular revival thanks to the practical guidance it offers on how to withstand adversity. Yet out of the ashes of ancient philosophers has emerged a new kind of self-help influencer who sells outdated masculine ideals.

Can fear be ecologically productive? Hit TV series The Last of Us capitalises off ecophobia with its fungus-zombie plot line, but the most affective genre narratives often reveal the uncanny truth that nature is not some antagonist outside us.

Fed to Red Birds, This is Not Miami, The Anniversary

While the arrival of ChatGPT will see us inundated with low-creativity work, human expression remains as vital as ever.

Despite the enduring popularity of coming-of-age stories, the Australian adolescent experience was largely absent in the film and TV that I watched growing up. Recent film 6 Festivals heralds a new wave of refreshing content that satisfies a thirst for accurate and relatable local stories.

The onscreen adaptation of Daisy Jones & The Six faced an uphill battle—the reader had been free to imagine the greatest arrangements ever recorded. Films and TV shows about bands have a unique, and almost impossible, challenge to sell songs invented for screen as global chart-topping hits.

A writing exercise got me thinking about the difference between seeing and remembering. External and internal worlds merge when we establish setting, and what is conveyed can have less to do with reality and more to do with the stance of the observer.

From digital mapping to location tagging, our perception of our bodies in physical space has become increasingly filtered through technology. But every knowledge system has gaps and ghosts—what does the impulse to chart our lives online teach us not to notice?

New Critic: Exploring the complex negotiations between migrant parents and their diaspora children, Zoya Patel’s first novel is a bold move against the conservative impetus toward familial unity at all costs, and a frank acknowledgement that often there is no easy reconciliation of cultural perspectives.

It’s widely accepted that Spotify is ruining music culture—but as persuasive as these arguments are, I can’t deny the joy I feel at having a world of music available on tap. Is it possible to love an art form to death?

Smashing Serendipity, Funny Ethnics, Birnam Wood

In a moment of growing backlash towards the transgender community, I’ve been drawn to the history books. The story of a Victorian man whose death in 1893 became a sensationalised headline reminds us that gender non-conforming people have always been here.

There’s something hypnotic about watching the routine activities of other people’s lives. But on platforms such as TikTok, authenticity and consumerism make for an uneasy mix when ‘real life’ is packaged into addictive bites.

Crows Nest, Dazzling, The God of No Good

Everything’s Gonna Be Okay and Heartbreak High are the first shows to feature openly autistic female leads played by autistic actresses. Watching these performances shattered my perceptions of what autism looks like and helped me understand my own experience.

For writers and readers, the end of a story is not just a summing up or a happily-ever-after—it’s the resolution of an unspoken promise you make at the start of your shared journey.

The K-pop superstars shocked fans when they put their juggernaut success on hold to enlist in the army.

Through a dedicated program for First Nations writers and editors, I was given the tools—the words—to explain why I looked for myself in stories in which there were no black girls.

The winner of the inaugural KYD Creative Non-fiction Prize explores the radical potential of an autistic affinity with the almost-human-but-not-quite.

Some of this year’s best television captures a fundamental change in our attitudes to work. The comedy is darker, the drama is more caustic and close-knit office dynamics are losing their sheen, as creators shift their focus from absurdity to alienation.

A war film disguised as a zombie movie, Yeon Sang-ho’s K-horror classic asks whether we can choose how we die—and therefore what we choose to live for.

Literary fiction about the internet still tends to centre a singular narrator experiencing strangers through their online presence. How might writers dissolve this centralised voice and embrace the messy cacophony of the internet?

A staple of tourism hot spots, book exchanges remain largely populated by Western memoirs of hedonism and adventure. A new wave of narratives resist the urge to exoticise, approaching travel as something less performative and more introspective.

The now-blocked merger, which would have seen a publishing behemoth become even larger, exposed some of the uncomfortable realities of a romanticised industry, and the very real gap between culture and commerce in the sector.

We’re All Going To The World’s Fair, Jane Schoenbrun’s claustrophobic creepypasta horror, captures what makes the internet soothing and terrifying and real and unreal all at once. Watching the film we experience all the discomfort and anxiety that arises when the lines between reality and simulation start to blur.

Tell Me Again, Men I Trust, The Glass House, The Lovers

Conversation with the bestselling author of Now Is Not the Time to Panic

How do we imagine the inner lives of inanimate objects? Fascinated by stories of objects sent into space, I began to use fictional, speculative and experimental modes of writing to look back at humanity and blur the lines between hard science and human emotion.

An advance from a publisher can sound like a windfall, but the reality is closer to a bet made on an artist’s commercial success—and for most authors, an unstable and unliveable form of income.

blackbirds don’t mate with starlings, Nothing to Hide, Gemini Falls, Limberlost

Conversation with the award-winning author of The Book of Form and Emptiness

For a film whose action happens almost entirely offline, the internet is ever-present in Bodies Bodies Bodies. Halina Reijn’s horror comedy recognises that the internet’s hyper-awareness of genre tropes and packaged selves has become enmeshed in how we engage with those closest to us.

My visual arts and writing practices exist in a loop with inspiration running in both directions. What started as intimate, therapeutic processes have become empowering tools for advocacy and agency.

Our clothes demarcate our private sphere from the public, whether we are standing out or blending in. From a reliance on everyday outfits to splashes of fabulousness, my own sense of style has evolved along with my identity.

Legitimate Sexpectations, Against Disappearance, Hopeless Kingdom, This Devastating Fever

Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies

Perspective, empathy and itsy bits of life in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Four perspectives on Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes’ raucous Australian horror.

Music has been a sovereign aspect of being for tens of thousands of years. As I recalibrate where and how to place my music, I am trying to prioritise spiritual wellness and affirm pathways for generations ahead to follow in.

Revisiting one of Disney’s biggest box-office bombs reveals a bold but flawed relic of the 2000s, in which the House of Mouse risked it all on something angsty, odd and experimental.

Everything Feels Like the End of the World, Every Version of You, Motherlands, Train Lord

One of Australia’s most successful and reliable media exports, the Ramsay Street soap had an outsize impact on the local arts industry both on and off screen.

The most authentic literary depictions of online life today do not foreground the internet’s otherness, but recognise the minute and overt ways it envelops and informs our daily realities.

For playwright Vidya Rajan and director Stephen Nicolazzo, adapting Melina Marchetta’s beloved novel for the stage was an opportunity to explore new angles and themes.

big beautiful female theory, Enclave, Holy Woman, Forty Nights

As a multi-hyphenated emerging writer with literary aspirations, my identity is inextricable from my art. But representation as an artistic goal feels like too high a price on my soul.

There’s something unsatisfying about the Netflix mega-hit’s treatment of the culture it claims to love. Its overt self-consciousness and warped nostalgia is representative of the rot infecting the entire streaming landscape. 

In an era where the Hollywood machine has not looked kindly on hard-to-categorise titles, the success of the Daniels’ universe-hopping hit shows that audiences are ready to embrace the strange.

The Eulogy, Homesickness, This All Come Back Now, Basin

Priests have long been an adaptable entry point into narrative struggles between good and evil. As audiences grow more secular and sceptical of the church, filmmakers are increasingly leaning into the inherent conflicts and contradictions of the calling.

Part public service announcement, part brand mascot, costumed critters have been wishing regional Australia goodnight for decades. What was the purpose of this cheap-and-cheerful phenomenon, and has this watershed moment in local kitsch passed?

Con artists are enjoying an extended moment in the spotlight—but for a genre that delights in screwing over the rich, there’s surprisingly little resistance to capitalism itself. Is there a more subtle critique to be found in the art of the scam?

A new program is helping me to pursue a career in publishing after years of trying to get a foot in the door. This opportunity gives me the chance to amplify voices that have been overlooked on the shelf, as well as behind the scenes.

The queer community has embraced Kath & Kim because it highlights the absurdity of the ordinary. Growing up and coming to terms with my sexuality, its camp aesthetics showed me there was space in this world for a flamboyant kid like me.

When an online video game I played in my teens announced it was shutting down, I witnessed an apocalypse play out in miniature—from anarchy and despair to small moments of generosity, community and even hope.

How to Be Between, Root & Branch, Daisy & Woolf, Abomination

In the wake of another disastrous budget, advocates for the arts sector remain trapped in the cursed logic of the free market economy. As an election approaches, we must not settle for crumbs but rethink what we value as a society.

Hovering, Unlimited Futures, The Burnished Sun, The Writer Laid Bare

Joining a girls’ choir gave me a sense of communion at a time when I felt like I didn’t belong. But despite the intoxicating sense of shared purpose, the choir was also a microcosm of Australian attitudes towards gender, race and disability.

Years after losing my religion, I longed for a way to direct my worshipful heart without the old hierarchies. Turning to nature writing allowed me to connect spiritually with the natural world.

Son of Sin, Sadvertising, Australiana, The Novel Project

The internet isn’t the utopia many originally envisioned—but for those who grew up online, cynical cautionary tales don’t reflect reality. Two anime films made a decade apart reflect our evolving ideas of virtual worlds, and hold out hope for connection within the chaos.

Highlights from the Melbourne Women in Film Festival Critics Lab

The Australian literary industry continues to lack First Nations and multicultural representation behind the scenes—an imbalance that can lead to inappropriate and often damaging editorial decisions and experiences.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut offers a restrained and compelling portrayal of an imperfect woman, and resists the societal impulse to definitively redeem or condemn women who complicate our ideas of motherhood.

For writers used to linear storytelling, writing for video games can seem like a daunting prospect—but it’s a crucial part of creating an immersive experience. When there are as many styles of play as there are players, how do you write for them all?

The Cost of Labour, Cold Enough for Snow, Found, Wanting, The Torrent

As social media blurs the line between real friendship and parasocial bonds, it’s easy to get caught up in new connections and communities. But knowing or being known by a lot of people is not the same as being understood.

Staff and contributors share the culture we loved in 2021

Reading Ferrante’s novel for the first time, I was amazed at how much a story set in 1950s Naples echoed my own migrant upbringing in 1980s western Sydney.