Jessica Alice

Nib Literary Award 2025 longlist announced | Books+Publishing Purchase a subscription to view job ads and other premium content on Books+Publishing.

And in other good news, Slick has made the long list at The Nibs:

It's almost here! Byron Writers Festival '25 features more than 160 extraordinary writers on Bundjalung Country this 8-10 August.⁠
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Explore the program and plan your visit >>
byronwritersfestival.com/festival

The NSW Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the pro-Palestine march across Sydney Harbour Bridge! Protestors will be legally protected while marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge tomorrow after the NSW Supreme Court's decision this morning. #auspol #FreePalestine
#MarchForHumanity #SaveGaza

photo by Jonno Revanche

my debut album CROWN OF MY SPIRIT is out now 🩷☄️

took 5 years to get here. it's fittingly an album about finding trust in the cyclical arcs of time and life, through the inevitabilities of darkness and light.

lonelyspeck.bandcamp.com/album/crown-...

Tim Winton among 100 high-profile Australians calling for university fees that don’t ‘punish’ arts students Open letter urges Labor to reverse JRG scheme, introduced by Coalition in 2021, as cost of humanities degrees reaches more than $50,000

Proud to be one of many Australian arts graduates calling for a university policy and fee structure that champions the people who create Australia’s future www.theguardian.com/australia-ne... with thanks to @michellearrow.bsky.social and the AHA for taking the lead. Join us: advocate for change—

NSW spending $1.5m on literary hub to rival Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre and boost Sydney Writers festival Funding will mean 75 Sydney Writers festival events will take place over next 12 months * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Sydney’s literati is about to get what Melbourne has had for more than decade – a rival to the Wheeler Centre that established the southern city’s Unesco-endorsed reputation as the literary and publishing capital of Australia. On Sunday, the New South Wales arts minister, John Graham, announced the establishment of a dedicated literature hub, to be based out of the state’s public library, as is Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre. Continue reading...

NSW spending $1.5m on literary hub to rival Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre and boost Sydney Writers festival

You can also read it here www.ap.org/the-definiti...

Hi First Hobbes, Your sharp takes on the airport bestsellers that both captivated and confused us on If Books Could Kill resonate with so many, which is no surprise given that you’re pulling in around 1.1 million downloads per episode. Saw how consistent you’ve been with new episodes. Curious – do you feel like your podcast isn’t driving the business results you need, even with all your effort? Asking because our strategies recently... helped Dr. Joy increase her booked calls by 60% Added $250k in revenue for Kevin in 3 months Want to learn how these techniques could scale If Books Could Kill? Happy to share 3 specific strategies over a quick 20-minute call next week. Say ‘YES’ and I’ll send over my calendar.

Everyone says AI chatbots are getting really good at writing emails but uhhh I beg to differ

Climate change an "existential threat to humanity" but Australia law offers no recourse to Torres Strait islanders in class action against the government for negligence.

My report on today's decision in @reneweconomy.com.au:

If I can sum up what just happened as neatly as possible: a Federal Court judge found the Australian government had ignored climate science when setting emissions targets, appeared to want to find for the applicants, but said his hands were tied by the law of negligence in Australia.

/1

At 2pm today, we'll learn whether a group of Torres Strait Traditional Owners who sued the Australian government for negligence over its failure to meaningfully address climate change have been successful, and whether they've won.

I'll be reporting the decision for @reneweconomy.com.au.

Donate to In memory of Jessica Knight, organized by Giselle Nguyen On July 7, 2025, we very suddenly lost our dear friend Jess Knight. Jess was a wonderfu… Giselle Nguyen needs your support for In memory of Jessica Knight

Help give gorgeous Jess a proper celebration of her life 🩵
gofund.me/e6daa029

Splinter opens submissions for First Nations issue - Writers SA Writers SA's literary journal – Splinter – is inviting First Nations writers from around Australia and the world to submit to its third issue.

Literary journal Splinter is inviting First Nations writers from around Australia and the world to submit to its third issue writerssa.org.au/2025/splinte...

Having covered coronial inquests, it is exceedingly rare that coroners will go this far and commit this to print.

The Not So Happy Campers For more than seven decades, Camp Mystic has been one of the prettiest, happiest, and most exclusive destinations in Texas. But after a bitter, multimillion-dollar legal battle, the very thing that th...

Texas’s Camp Mystic was on the brink of turning 100 years old, was a favorite place for elite Texans to send their daughters, and was subject to considerable family legal turmoil over a decade ago.

This excellent Texas Monthly story has a lot of detail:

www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the...

Red Dirt Poetry Festival See you in 2026 in Mparntwe/Alice Springs!

Mparntwe's Red Dirt Poetry Festival needs help taking their poetry slam on tour from Alice to Tennant Creek, Katherine and Darwin.

Red Dirt's Laurie May gives her all to support young poets in the NT. If you can spare anything at all, please send it their way.

www.reddirtpoetryfestival.com

How the Media Helped Israel Bomb Iran, the ABC’s Future, and the State of Australian TV Podcast Episode · Lamestream · 18/06/2025 · 1h 8m

It’s been very underreported but the ABC has just gutted its arts and culture team. It will go down from 12 national arts, culture and entertainment reporters to 3. One of those will focused on writing PR for TV shows. It’s vandalism.

We covered it on our podcast: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/l...

Art is a fruitful endeavour because it is impossible to achieve exactly what is imagined… and yet a sincere effort can rise to the level of the sublime. Vale Brian Wilson.

Photo of the cover of the reprint of Slick: Australia's Toxic Relationship With Big Oil, including a fancy new sticker noting it was short-listed in the non-fiction category at the New South Wales Literary awards.

Slick has been given a reprint --now with a fancy sticker on the cover. If you want to understand Why We Are Like This on climate change, or read about things like that one time the oil and gas industry spied on the son of a prime minister, and you haven't picked up a copy, now's your chance!

Jonathan Ricketson reviews ‘Salvage’ by Jennifer Mills Why read a dystopian novel when the present already feels dystopian? In a round-up in The New Yorker of speculative fiction released during the first Trump administration, the historian and critic Jil...

Oh I'm just so delighted by this: "gleaming speculative fction with a core of humanism and hope". A spot-on review by Jonathan Rickman of @jennifermills.net.au's "thrilling, urgent" Salvage www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/c...

"The UN is set to reject World Heritage listing for the Murujuga rock art on the Burrup Peninsula due to the damage caused to approximately two million rock art engravings, or petroglyphs, by industrial pollution."

I regularly see these extremely damaging companies being thanked profusely for relatively tiny donations to community events and orgs.

Fossil fuel companies should be held responsible for their damage but instead we allow them to take credit for others' good work through sponsorships

#FossilAdBan

The Trump administration is now pulling previously confirmed arts funding

"We’re trying to stay optimistic, but with the administration’s other announcement this week that the NEA might be shut down in its entirety, it’s hard to do so."

Who’s eating publishers’ lunch? The rising costs and shrinking margins of Australian books Books may seem expensive in Australia, but they’re cheap when you take costs into account. For independent publishers, times are tough. What can we do?

One of the contributing factors for the tough times in book publishing is how retail prices are fairly steady but all the costs of making a book have gone up, my analysis in @theconversation.com shows
With thanks to @jocaseau.bsky.social for the excellent editing
theconversation.com/whos-eating-...

Coalition to cut 10% of Creative Australia funding to divert to Melbourne Jewish Arts Quarter Costings announcement follows the high-profile withdrawal of artist Khaled Sabsabi’s appointment as Australia’s Venice Biennale representative

“It’s the Brandis cuts all over again” www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction Content from the State Library of New South Wales.

Super excited to announce that Slick is in good company having been shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction at the New South Wales Literary Awards.

It's a great honour, and great to see climate change is being recognised as a story worth investigating in this way, in this country.

“All aboard the Trump train!” Coalition swaps out extreme right candidate for pro-gas MAGA man The man chosen to replace a Liberal candidate dumped over extreme comments is an ardent Trump supporter and one of key figures behind a pro-gas industry campaign.

The Coalition have tapped a former NSW Liberal MP, pro-gas lobbyist and Trump fan to replace a candidate it dumped for his extreme views shared on a series of far-right podcasts.

New from me in @reneweconomy.com.au.

Freelance journos at The Age, SMH, WA Today, AFR and Brisbane Times are being paid 59% less than they were 20 years ago! It’s a graph of shame!

So remember the strike at Nine newspapers last year? And how Nine agreed to negotiate a deal with freelancers as part of ending that action?

Well now they are trying to back away.

Freelance rates are still 72c which is what they were 20 years ago. And 72c is worth a LOT less now.

grim stuff thanks!