June–July 2019, issue no. 412

Ferocious grace

Felicity Plunkett on Nick Cave and trauma's aftermath

Calibre Prize: 'Floundering'

Runner-up Sarah Walker's personal essay on pregnancy

#MeToo: A reckoning

Zora Simic on #MeToo, a compilations of essays on the movement

Spring is here

Jack Callil on Ali Smith's new novel

Tell us your Favourite Australian Novel (since 2000)

And be in the running to win great prizes!

Ted Chiang's Exhalation

Lisa Bennett on the author's new collection of short stories

Welcome to the June–July issue of ABR!
Highlights include:

Ferocious grace
Felicity Plunkett on Nick Cave and trauma's aftermath

Calibre Prize: 'Floundering'
Runner-up Sarah Walker's personal essay on pregnancy

Spring is here
Jack Callil on Ali Smith's new novel

Bedlam at Botany Bay
Alan Atkinson on James Dunk's history of New South Wales

#MeToo: A reckoning
Zora Simic on #MeToo, a compilation of essays on the movement

The ABR Favourite Australian Novel poll
Vote now and win one of three great prizes!

Sign up to ABR newsletters

Epiphany: 'Braving Glyndebourne' by Robyn Archer

Robyn Archer

It was during the still relatively tentative explorations I was making into the world of international arts festival direction that I swallowed hard and made my first visit to Glyndebourne. I had lived in London throughout the 1980s, had performed there many times in various venues from the National to the Drill Hall to Wyndham’s in the West End ...

Free

Alison Broinowski reviews Typhoon Kingdom by Matthew Hooton

Alison Broinowski

In the May 2019 issue of Quadrant, its literary editor, Barry Spurr, inveighed against the ‘inane expansion of creative writing courses’. Professor Spurr’s scholarly accomplishments in the study of poetry and Australian fiction do not include creative writing. (His resignation from the University of Sydney was accepted in December 2014 ...

Michael Sexton reviews Robert Menzies: The art of politics by Troy Bramston

Michael Sexton

There have been at least half a dozen previous biographies of Robert Menzies, but Troy Bramston’s new life of Australia’s longest-serving prime minister is arguably the most attractive combination of research and readability ...

2019 Calibre Essay Prize (runner-up): 'Floundering' by Sarah Walker

Sarah Walker

I swim at night, carving through water full of chlorine and tasting of mould, turning lap after lap before the pool closes down, while cells inside me hurry into being like bubbles under a running tap. The lifeguard stalks along beside the pool watching me. I know he’s trying to get me out, but I can’t stop swimming ...