Cirrus@Austlit

'Ariel and Pete have a bond—they’re both aspiring writers stuck in retail advertising.

'They spend their days signing off proofs, checking terms and conditions, and putting adjectives in front of the word 'sale'.

'Only the Gmail chats they share give their lives any meaning.

'But will Ariel’s desperate attempt to assert her creativity in this moribund world finally split them apart?'

Source: Radio National (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/radiotonic/happymonday/6986620).

'Are crows smarter than chimpanzees? Can they solve riddles? And why exactly is a raven like a writing desk? This dark comedy profiles Bella Radcliffe, a curator assembling an exhibition entitled ‘True Crow’, alongside Charles and Grace Brenner, a young couple whose house is being overrun by a flock of crows. Their stories are linked not just by the presence of these birds, but by that of Derek Castenada, Bella’s keynote speaker. A self-styled crow-chaser, Derek offers to augur a solution to the Brenners’ problem, but he’s soon gone missing, on the trail of the mythical crow-child, Reagan Ayres. The drama culminates in the opening night of ‘True Crow’, as we await Derek’s triumphal – or tragic – return.'

Source: ABC website (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/radiotonic/like-a-writing-desk/5481664). (Sighted: 14/9/2015)

'According to playwright Noëlle Janaczewska, cooking just might be Australia’s favourite sport. Complete with star players, teams of highly trained professionals, enthusiastic amateurs, and masses of spectators. TV food programs proliferate; Nigella and Jamie are household names; all of us eat and most of us cook. But how do you approach it? Did you learn it at your mother’s knee, do you avoid it, embrace it, enjoy it or find it a chore? And what part might cookbooks play in the whole exercise?

'My Life in Cookbooks blends cultural features, interviews, quotations, soundscapes, music, humour, and philosophical reflection with an essayistic personal voice. Although it acknowledges our fascination with phenomena like MasterChef and Jamie’s 30–Minute Meals (the fastest–selling non-fiction book of all time, apparently), it charts an altogether more idiosyncratic and unexpected course. It interrogates the stories behind our cookbooks to explore the associations and the emotions they arouse in us.'

Source: Radio National.