Charlotte Wood

Here's what some of our earlier participants have said about Elements of Fiction - you can find out more here: charlottewoodwriter.thinkific.com/pages/EOFMas...

Thank you so much.

Details here:

Brief re-entry to Bluesky to let you know of our self-directed online writing course, 'Elements of Fiction'. Emily Perkins & I chose 5 topics: Voice, Texture, Tension, Time, and People - most of which we think are under-explored in writing classes. Very affordable & (we modestly think) excellent!

Thank you Jack, I appreciate your response to this!

Oh, thank YOU.

Michelle de Kretser’s 2025 acceptance speech

Great speech from Michelle

stella.org.au/2025/05/mich...

you're a legend, thank you!

oh thank you so much Florence!

Excellent work - it's going to be GREAT and I will be very bummed that an hour will not be long enough.

Making a Writer

And on Sunday I’m joining Colm Toibin & Michael Williams for more writer chat. Come!

Agreed - so horrifyingly relevant right now.

Malcolm Knox: The First Friend

BUT before I scoot - if you're at Sydney Writers' Festival tomorrow don't miss the brilliant Malcolm Knox on his chilling, hilarious novel on totalitarianism & power 'friendships' (sound familiar?) The First Friend - 3pm. I'm in the interviewer chair; can't wait.
www.swf.org.au/program/seas...

Subtraction | Charlotte Wood | Substack An archive of eight essays on the creative process - and from September 2024, occasional announcements about Charlotte's work, news & events. Click to read Subtraction, by Charlotte Wood, a Substack ...

From Monday I’m taking a long break from the socials to return to writing, refill the well & for some general despair repair. I'll occasionally share news of my work via my near-defunct (free) Substack if you're inclined to subscribe. charlottewood.substack.com

It is unbelievably pathetic -my point was supposed to be that normal people no longer care what The Australian thinks.

Progressive people need to stop convincing themselves of this line. I understand it’s tempting, but the Australian absolutely has non-zero influence on political opinion. Every other media outlet is in total fear of it. The Greens and Labor are in fear of it.

But *why* are they in fear of it?

Talk about 'obeying in advance' - absolutely pathetic capitulation to right wing media by political & creative 'leadership' yet again. Institutions should have policies about this kind of interference, and stick to them. Absolute cowardice.

Totally bizarre that this happens immediately after an election comprehensively showing that the outrage-churning Australian newspaper has zero influence on political / public opinion. Politicians, grow some integrity. Institutions - libraries and universities, grow some courage: refuse!

First Nations writer speaks out after being stripped of $15,000 State Library of Queensland award over Gaza tweet Library says it will review all its awards after last-minute cancellation of ceremony to present black&write! fellowship to Karen Wyld

This is very useful reporting about the disgraceful decision to rescind Ren Wyld's black&write! fellowship - and it's confirming a pattern of serious consequences for Australian artists - especially First Nations and Arab artists - who speak out on Gaza.

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Taken from Sam Landman on FB but not sure if he is the artist. Graphic saying AI is for losers, reject fascism think for yourself. I can make Art that’s ugly and bad all by myself thank you very much

Twenty Lessons for Fighting Tyranny | Carnegie Reporter Winter 2022 | Carnegie Corporation of New York Historian and Andrew Carnegie Fellow Timothy Snyder suggests ways to defend democracy with individual actions

I know we've all seen these but I like to re-examine them and remind myself of my own responsibilities (like making smalltalk and eye contact with strangers, something I hate doing but I now see as essential!), over and over.

Love this Sinead - would love to go one day. It was closed during my visit last year 😢

It's suffused with the pure beauty of hard-won truth, told through restraint. Love hurts. Rigour and difficult thinking hurt - we are made better because of these things. Thank you @appletwigli.bsky.social for this saddest, most courageously truth-telling work. I'll return to it all my life.

This book contains nothing gratuitous, nothing self-serving, no special pleading, no striving to persuade or please. It offers no false consolation – not in sentiment, nor tone or structure. I have found this book extremely difficult to describe to others. All I can say is: read it.

A green-jacketed paperback nestled in green grass. The book is Things in Nature Merely Grow, by Yiyun Li.

Hand holding a green-jacketed paperback against a backdrop of green grass and autumn grapevine leaves. The book is Things in Nature Merely Grow, by Yiyun Li.

A longish post. I don’t think I’ve ever read a more truthful book – and nor, therefore, a more humane book than Things in Nature Merely Grow. Yiyun Li’s philosophical and psychic reckoning with the loss of both her sons is soaked in what Graham Greene once referred to as ‘the dignity of despair’. >

😖😖😖

Sigrid Nunez on the Beauty of Narrative Restraint The award-winning author of “The Friend” explains why some of the recent books that she admires most are ones in which not much happens.

Sigrid Nunez, a writer I have admired and whose books I've loved for a long time, has included my novel in her New Yorker list of recommendations and now I want to read every one of them.

M Gessen always on point. Terrifying.

😂