Hidden Author
Aidan Coleman is a poet, critic and speechwriter. He has published two collections of poetry: Avenues & Runways and Asymmetry, shortlisted for awards including the NSW Premier's Kenneth Slessor Prize, the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature and the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards. Aidan has received numerous grants and residencies, most recently at the Heinrich Böll Cottage (Ir ... (read more)
Porter Prize winner
Amanda Joy, from Western Australia, was named overall winner of the Peter Porter Poetry Prize at a Boyd ceremony on 9 March. Her poem is entitled 'Tailings'. All five shortlisted poets introduced and read their poems – two of them disembodiedly (Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet from the United States, Dan Disney from Korea). Amanda Joy received $5,000 and a print by Arthur Boyd; the ... (read more)
TROVE CURTAILED
Dear Editor,
As President of the Australian Historical Association, on 2 March I sent the following letter to the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull MP, Prime Minister of Australia, (and copied it to the Hon. Bill Shorten MP, Leader of the Opposition; Senator the Hon. Mitch Fifield, Minister for the Arts; and the Hon. Mark Dreyfus QC, MP, Shadow Minister for the Arts):
Dear Mr Turnbull,
A ... (read more)
Florence Foster Jenkins
Why is bad singing so funny? Why do missed high notes induce such hilarity? Is it all vaudeville or a case of Schadenfreude? Curiously, we have two new films about the egregious soprano par excellence, Florence Foster Jenkins (whose awful recordings are legendary and who died soon after giving a disastrous recital in Carnegie Hall in 1944). The first – Marguerite, direct ... (read more)
More than 700 poets entered this year's Peter Porter Poetry Prize; just over 200 of these entries came from overseas. The judges were Luke Davies, Lisa Gorton and Kate Middleton. They completed their judgement without knowing the name, gender, background or nationality of any entrant.
This prize honours Peter Porter and its judges seek to honour him not only in name but in principle: by valuing v ... (read more)
Australian Book Review is delighted to announce that Amanda Joy has won the 2016 Peter Porter Poetry Prize for her poem 'Tailings'. Morag Fraser named Amanda Joy as the overall winner at a ceremony in the ABR office at Boyd Community Hub. She receives $5,000 for her poem, which was selected from a field of around 730 poems. She also receives Arthur Boyd's etching and aquatint 'The unicorn and th ... (read more)
The return of Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen's masterpiece for solo piano Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus was last performed in Melbourne in February 2009 – days after the opening of the Melbourne Recital Centre. Steven Osborne was the soloist on that occasion. His was a memorable performance – in front of a pitifully small audience, not helped by the eccentric programming so typical of ... (read more)
Brian Johns, who died in Sydney on New Year's Day, was a remarkable man, a great friend to many, and a great enabler. His family came to Sydney from Queensland in 1947, and at the age of sixteen Brian entered St Columba's Seminary. After three years he left and went to Canberra to become a journalist. It was the start of a career marked by his passion for providing increased opportunity to Austral ... (read more)
OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND BORDER CONTROL
Dear Prime Minister and Minister Dutton,
As writers committed to protecting and defending human rights, and as citizens of conscience, we the undersigned wish to express our deep abhorrence of the ongoing mistreatment of refugees in Australia's offshore detention centres.
As writers, we are called in our work to e ... (read more)