Kylie Maslen

In the wake of the mid-2010s ‘personal essay boom’, writers are shaping and stretching the personal essay form to share stories that refuse a traditional telling.

The House of Youssef; Pills, Powder and Smoke; Meet me at Lennon’s

Little Stones, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone, Sweatshop Women Volume 1

Why is astrology – seeing a new resurgence among women and queer folk – still denigrated as frivolous fairytales, while superstitions and hoodoos in sport are accepted as part of what it takes to win?

New Critic: What does it mean to be poor in a wealthy nation? New US and Australian titles seek to demystify the regional working class, unpacking and rejecting assumptions made by the powerful about the needs of those in ‘flyover country’.

New Critic: At once a cultural, academic and personal unpacking of bipolar disorder and the messy ethics of mania, Sam Twyford-Moore’s The Rapids is a valuable addition to the growing list of books exploring what it is to live with an unruly mind.

New Critic: As Australian women’s sport grows from strength to strength, more and more publishers are getting on board, with new journalism, essay collections and children’s fiction hitting the shelves. But who are these books for, and is the industry’s interest in women’s sport just another publishing fad?

New Critic: Recent scandals in Australian non-fiction have highlighted publishers’ responsibilities not only to their readers but to their authors’ subjects. But is a failure of fact-checking solely to blame? Or are there further hidden risks in the way these revelations are reported?

New Critic: The essays in Hanif Abdurraqib’s new collection They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us approach music not just through the lens of taste, but as a bridge between worlds, and a common language for disenfranchised kids struggling for connection.

A new book exploring women’s experiences of addiction and substance abuse highlights the structural misogyny in the way women’s pain is researched, treated and silenced.