Cirrus@Austlit

'Melissa Lucashenko didn't want to write a book about First Contact.'

'Comedian Kitty Flanagan always wanted to make her own TV show.'

'Playwright David Williamson has spent more than 50 years satirising the lives of the white middle-class.'

'Karen Comer didn't set out to write a pandemic novel. But, living in Melbourne in 2020 through one of the world's strictest lockdowns, she read over part of her book and found she had accidentally written one.'

'Rebel Wilson's directorial debut film will premiere in September at a prestigious international film festival, despite producers filing a defamation lawsuit against Wilson.'

'Melbourne street artist Matt Adnate has won the Packing Room Prize for his portrait of Yolngu rapper Baker Boy.' 

'Yankunytjatjara poet Ali Cobby Eckermann has won the top prize at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards for her "stunning" verse novel She Is the Earth.'

'Apples Never Fall, starring Sam Neill, Annette Bening and Alison Brie and adapted from the Liane Moriarty novel of the same name, is the latest trashy, bingeable thriller to hit the small screen.' (Introduction)

'Thirty years after Holding the Man author Timothy Conigrave died, Belvoir St theatre’s artistic director is bringing back the play adapted from the book – with his partner in the lead role'

'Earlier this month, The Australian's literary editor Caroline Overington declared the issue of women writers "not being taken seriously in this country" as "solved".' 

'Melbourne writer Jessica Au has won Australia's richest literary award, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards (VPLAs) for her short but "masterful" novel Cold Enough for Snow.'  (Introduction)

'After a break of 25 years, the chance to work on one of her favourite plays has lured actor, producer and director Claudia Karvan back to the stage. By Hannah Story.' (Introduction)

'Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke has unveiled the government's new national cultural policy — the first significant framework of its kind in nearly a decade.'

'Far North Queensland-based author and former foreign correspondent Nicolas Rothwell has won the $80,000 Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction for his third novel, Red Heaven, in a ceremony in Launceston on Tuesday afternoon that was disrupted midway through by a fire alarm.'