Cirrus@Austlit

'There is a growing and welcome trend in Melbourne theatre. The sort that doesn't occur by accident. Independent theatre is gaining traction with mainstream audiences, taking out major awards and getting a larger slice of the pie. A deliberate attempt is being made to fertilise the playing field, and it seems to be working.' (Publication abstract)

' 'Well at this point, I guess you're only as sick as you feel.' Dad delivered the line with a shrug, as mystified as we all were. It was the evening of 6 December 2007, and I was ten hours on from the end of my first chemotherapy infusion. Girded by our knowledge of how a typical response to chemo should play out, going this long without even a semblance of queasiness could be considered a miracle on par with Jesus' return from the dead.' (Publication abstract)

''The only people for me,' Jack Kerouac wrote in his autobiographical novel On the Road, 'are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles...' I read this, now legendary, sentence some years ago and was struck by how precisely Kerouac summed up my own writerly obsessions.' (Publication abstract)

'The pages of the report pertaining to Inquest No. 51/1003 - 'Inquisition before Coroner sitting alone' - are held together by a split-pin fastener that's been in place so long its rust has pressed into the paper. There are sixteen foolscap sheets including a doctor's report and six witness statements. And then, at the back, there's a diagrammatic sketch of train lines and platforms, gradients and curves.' (Publication abstract)

''We read to know we are not alone,' - the character of CS Lewis says this line in William Nicholson's play, Shadowlands. To know that someone else shares our embarrassments, fears, doubts, longings ... or if not shares them, has at least had the thought flitter across their mind - that is everything. But what if you don't ever find that connection? Such is the case for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and intersex (LGBTQI) youth, seeking portrayals of themselves in young adult (YA) and children's literature - particularly in Australia.' (Publication abstract)