Cirrus@Austlit

'The world is so vast, history so long and the vanished so countless, a person might quail to consider the living. But an artist, a visual artist intent on including himself in the practice of recording the history of the human story, might narrow his focus so that the universal becomes a few living names symbolising the many, and marks upon a surface become strikes against the infinite.' 

'On the publication of his latest novel, the postapocalyptic Juice, TIM WINTON reflects on the process and burden of creating an imagined future during a time of climate crisis and existential dread.' 

'Following her 2024 Booker Prize nomination for Stone Yard Devotional, author Charlotte Wood decamped to a writers’ retreat on the west coast of Scotland. She spoke to CATE KENNEDY about solitude and creativity ahead of the shortlist announcement.'

'It's almost like being in my teens again, when the lights dim and a hush falls over the audience. Almost. Back then, I saw two movies every week in a Saturday night double feature with my best friend, without ever checking the schedule. Curtains opened on either side of the screen with a tinny hum. We sat upright in stiff leather chairs or slouched in slung canvas at the front, and at the back of the cinema was a glassed-in smoker’s room, filled with puffing patrons and a dense haze. How anyone could see through that was beyond me.' (Introduction)

'SOMETIMES IT FEELS AS THOUGH every Australian film is a coming-of-age story. Inside and Memoir of a Snail were two of the best at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, and, though they couldn’t be more different, each generates pathos and tension from the awful vulnerability of children shunted into the world of adults' (Introduction)