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y separately published work icon Portable Curiosities selected work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 Portable Curiosities
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A biting collection of stories from a bold new voice. A young girl sees ghosts from her third eye, located where her belly button should be. A corporate lawyer feels increasingly disconnected from his job in a soulless 1200-storey skyscraper. And a one-dimensional yellow man steps out from a cinema screen in the hope of leading a three-dimensional life, but everyone around him is fixated only on the color of his skin. Welcome to Portable Curiosities. In these dark and often fantastical stories, Julie Koh combines absurd humour with searing critiques on modern society, proving herself to be one of Australia's most original and daring young writers.' (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

17217809
17022320
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Notes

  • Dedication: For my parents and sister, patrons of this dark art.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

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Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
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Related Works

Cream Reaper Julie Koh , 2016 extract prose (Portable Curiosities)
— Appears in: Best Austrian Australian Comedy Writing 2016; (p. 179-204)
VIEW ALL RELATED WORKS (1)

Works about this Work

What I Wish I’d Known About: Studying Creative Writing 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , June 2022;
Identity Is Cruel : Capital, Gimmick and Surveillance in the Australian Postdiasporic Short Story Keyvan Allahyari , Tyne Daile Sumner , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , November no. 69 2021; 'If we were to take recent controversies in the Australian literary scene as an indication of its current priorities, we would—at least on one pronounced level—encounter what can be generally called an ethics of inclusivity for diasporic writers. Regardless of the degrees of sophistication of these debates, their participants appeal to the primacy of diasporic identity—its sheer visibility—as a necessary part of the constitution and imaginary of contemporary literature vis-à-vis the nation’s demographic composition. This call for equity of representation is frequently paired with an emphasis on the labour of diasporic writers in surmounting obstacles for publishing narratives about multicultural life, and the structural biases of literary institutions, cultural awards and (white) critics against diasporic writing. The shared assumption here is that there exists an overlap of inequalities between social and literary worlds. What often remains a moot question is the extent to which disseminating diasporic representation is aligned with models of consumption prediction that are predicated on a direct relationship between institutionally fashionable terms such as diversity and inclusion, and maximising business performance schemes. As Sara Ahmed has observed, diversity is associated with conditions of work which are already promoted by organisations. ‘The story of diversity’, she writes, ‘thus becomes a story of diversity’s inclusion into the terms of an institution’ (9).'

 (Introduction)
What Should Politicians Be Reading at Parliamentary Book Club? Our Experts Make Their Picks Jane Howard , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 21 August 2019;
Julie Koh Leah Jing McIntosh , 2019 single work interview
— Appears in: Liminal , July 2019;
Julie Koh Portable Curiosities. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt Ashley Kalagian Blunt , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , August 2017;

'Portable Curiosities portrays a world of comic misery and brightly coloured heartache.'
Review : Portable Curiosities Heather Lunney , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Good Reading , July 2016; (p. 34)
— Review of Portable Curiosities Julie Koh , 2016 selected work short story
Review: 'Portable Curiosities' by Julie Koh Cassandra Atherton , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 383 2016; (p. 44)
— Review of Portable Curiosities Julie Koh , 2016 selected work short story
August in Fiction Michalia Arathimos , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , August 2016;
— Review of Portable Curiosities Julie Koh , 2016 selected work short story ; Salt Creek Lucy Treloar , 2015 single work novel ; Dodge Rose Jack Cox , 2015 single work novel
The Bleeding Edge : New Short Fiction Sophia Barnes , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2016;
— Review of After the Carnage Tara June Winch , 2016 selected work short story ; Peripheral Vision Paddy O'Reilly , 2015 selected work short story ; Portable Curiosities Julie Koh , 2016 selected work short story
Stacey Trick Reviews Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh Stacey Trick , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , April no. 20 2017;
— Review of Portable Curiosities Julie Koh , 2016 selected work short story 'The short story form, historically, has been regarded as a literary art form in its own right that often creatively explores the zeitgeist of a particular time and the psyche of the human condition. Throughout history, celebrated writers have often influenced a fixed supposition in their reader’s imaginations. When we think of Ernest Hemingway, the trials and tribulations of being a poor writer and expatriate during war times particularly in Paris comes to the forefront of our minds. To think of Arthur Conan Doyle evokes, at once, impressions of Sherlock Holmes solving mysteries in the bustling streets of London during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, between about 1880 to 1914. And certainly, when Edgar Allan Poe comes to mind, impressions of macabre and mystery influenced by the darkest corners of the human psyche are often explored in the most extreme and grisly circumstances.' (Introduction)
A Feast of Bite-Sized Gems Elaine Fry , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 19 October 2016; (p. 18)
Julie Koh Portable Curiosities. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt Ashley Kalagian Blunt , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , August 2017;

'Portable Curiosities portrays a world of comic misery and brightly coloured heartache.'
Julie Koh Leah Jing McIntosh , 2019 single work interview
— Appears in: Liminal , July 2019;
What Should Politicians Be Reading at Parliamentary Book Club? Our Experts Make Their Picks Jane Howard , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 21 August 2019;
What I’m Reading— Alice Grundy , 2016 single work
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2016;
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Awards

VIEW ALL AWARDS (5)
Last amended 21 Aug 2019 11:40:50
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