An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.
08.10.2025 22:34 β π 2053 π 343 π¬ 25 π 105@alanvaarwerk.com.bsky.social
word rearranger
An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.
08.10.2025 22:34 β π 2053 π 343 π¬ 25 π 105Bitter fruit: the dark underside of the booming NSW blueberry industry
03.10.2025 15:04 β π 2 π 5 π¬ 1 π 0Alles Klar by Anna Merlan with Duolingo Owl and speech bubble saying [...]
On language "learning," Duolingo, A.I., and travel; many beautiful and comical reflections by @annamerlan.bsky.social
flaminghydra.com/issue-407/#a...
www.killyourdarlings.com.au/become-a-mem...
07.09.2025 00:45 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0did a bit of reverse image searching at work
04.09.2025 08:18 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0In 2019, University of Melbourne Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Su Baker said the university would continue to provide significant funding to its publishing arm and continue to support Miegunyah Press books and literary magazine Meanjin.
Why has that position changed?
holy hell. awful
04.09.2025 01:04 β π 1 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0Targeting journalists is a war crime.
As colleagues, we remember them.
meaa.io/45A4vZ5
Australiaβs potential surrender of creative content to tech giants for free is shocking. Labor must decide where it stands
06.08.2025 07:58 β π 51 π 27 π¬ 8 π 2MEAA supports the Palestine Action Groupβs bid to March for Humanity across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
meaa.io/4laIpSL
Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die July 21, 2025 AFP has been working with 1 writer, 3 photographers and 6 videographers, all freelance, in the Gaza Strip since its staff journalists left in 2024. Along with a few others, they are now the only ones left to report what is happening in the Gaza Strip. The international press has been banned from entering the territory for nearly two years. We refuse to watch them die. One of them, Bashar, has been working with AFP since 2010, first as a fixer, then freelance photographer, and since 2024, as lead photographer. On July 19th he managed to post a message on Facebook: βI no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I canβt work anymore.β Bashar, 30, works & lives in the same conditions as all Gazans, moving from one refugee camp to another under Israeli bombings. For > a year heβs lived in utter destitution, working at extreme risk to his life. Hygiene is a major issue for him, with recurring bouts of severe intestinal illness. Since Feb, Basharβs been living in the ruins of his home in Gaza City with his mother, 4 brothers & sisters and the family of one of his brothers. Their house is devoid of any furnishings, except a few cushions. On Sunday morning, he reported that one of his brothers had βfallen, due to hunger.β Even though these journalists receive a monthly salary from AFP, itβs no longer enough to buy food, or they have to pay completely exorbitant prices. The banking system has collapsed, and those who exchange money via online bank accounts charge a commission of up to 40%. AFP no longer has the ability to provide them with a vehicle and there is not enough fuel to allow these journalists to travel for their reporting. Driving a car means becoming a target for Israeli airstrikes. AFP reporters therefore travel on foot or by donkey cart. (alt txt continued in next post)
A horrifying statement published today by the Editorial Committee of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
"Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die"
Translation from French to English by @cnorristrent.bsky.social:
In a time when big conglomerates are absorbing small publishers, thereβs a new indie on the scene! We spoke with Emily Hart and Margot Lloyd about why they packed in their jobs at established publishing houses to start Pink Shorts Press from scratch.
26.05.2025 01:42 β π 1 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0omg i love this
21.04.2025 02:00 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0wrote something very silly about one of the less soul-crushing ways to spend time online
20.04.2025 23:55 β π 5 π 1 π¬ 1 π 1βWhatβs required is a word-nerd reining themselves in and making a judgment call that accounts for context, intention, interpretation, linguistic change, logistics, facts, tact. Because, otherwise, what separates a human editor from an AI spellchecker?β Adolfo Aranjuez
Editors share what they've learned on the job in our latest What I Wish I'd Known.
Read more: buff.ly/xPdduvA
I wrote a thing about drawing and Melbourne www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
21.03.2025 23:24 β π 20 π 12 π¬ 2 π 0i love da movies
03.03.2025 03:17 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Art canβt stop genocide, but this is an incredible moment
03.03.2025 02:15 β π 241 π 47 π¬ 1 π 1Today in KYD, Jess Scully, former deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, on why Creative Australia's failure to uphold artistic freedoms is an issue for all Australiansβnot just the arts community.
https://buff.ly/4klIiEH
Creative Australia only terminated Khaled Sabsabiβs Venice contract *today* and only sought legal advice on it three days ago
25.02.2025 10:22 β π 62 π 21 π¬ 4 π 3EXCLUSIVE: Two Palestinian flags on a tapestry on display at the National Gallery of Australia have been concealed with white fabric, in what the artists have described as an act of censorship they only agreed to reluctantly.
20.02.2025 02:24 β π 278 π 140 π¬ 24 π 44vic residents can get a membership to any library in the state - iβve had a decent hit rate on overdrive with Boroondara but ymmv
18.02.2025 20:45 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Arts Minister Tony Burke made some remarks earlier this week about Creative Australiaβs decision to ditch Lebanese Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi as the pick for the 61st Venice Biennale.
They didnβt get much coverage but I canβt get them out of my head.
So here you go.
can't wait for some consultant to be paid 500k to add a single dot point to the selection criteria that factors in how long the murdoch press would relentlessly attack an artist
16.02.2025 22:19 β π 12 π 4 π¬ 0 π 1congrats in advance to whoever gets the call from creative aus telling them their art has been deemed sufficiently non-controversial
13.02.2025 23:51 β π 57 π 21 π¬ 0 π 0Actual quote from Creative Australia about dropping a Lebanese-Australian artist due to pressure caused by his past statements in support of Palestinians:
βCreative Australia is an advocate for freedom of artistic expression and is not an adjudicator on the interpretation of art. However,β
βbut I want to stress the labour rights angle anew, which is often neglected in lofty statements about authors and readers and capital-L literature. Of course we should be worried about the ever diminishing opportunities available for writers to get paid for their work, and also about avid readers of Australian literature having fewer books to choose from β but conglomeration is a particularly shit deal for people employed by publishers, the editors, publicists, proofreaders, sales folks, production editors, accountants, rights managers and other bods involved in bringing books into print. Those are the workers directly affected by processes euphemised as change management and rationalisation. We do need to talk about artists rights in Australia and recognise the value of creative labour, but Iβm strongly of the view that the work of artsworkers needs to be more visible in these conversations.β
hard agree with this from @catrionamp.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/infradig...
13.02.2025 00:45 β π 5 π 3 π¬ 0 π 0I am often accused of being too emotional when reporting on politics - but I would rather have a human emotional response than pretend this is just 'reshaping US policy in the Middle East'. It's ethnic cleansing and the end of the rule of law. And the Australian government has said nothing
05.02.2025 01:25 β π 968 π 294 π¬ 62 π 23