Often, for a work to have a sense of ‘aliveness’, writing it has to be just as much a process of discovery for the author as for the reader. While working on Cold Enough for Snow, I suppose I was thinking about several things, and trying to conceive of a form – the simplest possible – where many, or all, could be held to be true at once.

Congratulations to Andy Jackson and Fiona Kelly McGregor, who have been shortlisted for the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for their works Human Looking (Poetry) and Buried Not Dead (Non-fiction).

Congratulations to Adam Aitken, who has won this year’s Patrick White Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Australian literature.

Sunday 12 December, 4:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Pratten Park Bowling Club, Ashfield

Join Max Easton for the launch of his debut novel The Magpie Wing launched by Briohny Doyle, with live bands Del Lumanta and Witness K.

In The Magpie Wing, brother and sister Walt and Helen find a brief sense of belonging in the underground music communities of inner Sydney after fleeing the family home in the city’s southwestern suburbs: via the early internet, back issues of DIY punk zines and informal CD swapping networks. This playlist takes the bands named in the book as influences, and places them with Sydney bands the pair would have played with, supported, or watched.

Congratulations to Rawah Arja and Laurie Duggan who have been shortlisted for the 2021 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for young adult literature and poetry, respectively.

Thursday 18 November, 6.30pm AEDT

Join Andy Jackson in conversation with Jill Jones as they discuss Jackson’s latest collection of poetry, Human Looking, published by Giramondo in October 2021. The event is free and streamed live online.

“Jann was extremely precise in her work and these apparent incidentals mattered. I think that a fundamental dichotomy in her approach caused her some existential angst: how could she make the poem as exact as possible and yet still leave ‘room in each poem for the imagination of the reader to move around in’.”

“Nearly six years ago, when I had written the last of my poems for the collection Green Shadows and Other Poems, I felt sure that I could write nothing more for publication. I went on writing, of course, but only for my archives.”

HEAT, Giramondo’s literary journal, will be published in a third series from early 2022, and welcomes poetry, fiction, essays and hybrid forms. Our intention is to publish the best work being written in Australia and internationally, with a view to cultivating an openness to possibilities. Submissions will be open for the months of October and November.

There are two ways of saying ‘human looking’; one with a hyphen, the other with a comma. In other words, these poems are about how we judge others to be human yet not-quite-human. They’re also about the humanness of the gaze, the vulnerability of the person doing the looking.

For several years I was working on a book about Europeans who explored Australia. At the same time I was tending a small archive about my friend, the dancer and choreographer Philippa Cullen, who once said that if she died young, I should write about her. She was twenty-five when she died, in 1975

Congratulations to Pi O who is shortlisted for the Melbourne Prize for Literature and Kristen Lang, longlisted for The Laurel Prize for Earth Dwellers.

We invite you to join us online for the launch of Toby Fitch’s new collection Sydney Spleen and for a conversation between Anwen Crawford and Declan Fry.

“It is difficult to live in the ‘after’ of sexual assault when empire reminds you time and time again – through the broken justice system, the news, and the stories of people you care about – that what was done to you doesn’t matter. Through the writing of these poems, I’ve tried to map out what it means to live in the ‘after’ while holding the weapons of rage, hope and desire.”

“I did intend for the heroes of this book to be equally as influenced by Tommy Raudonikis and the Western Suburbs Magpies as they were by Kathy Acker, The Dicks and Noam Choamsky: to have equal appreciation of the great sport of rugby league as they do the (ir-)relevant cultural artifacts of twenty-first century Sydney punk music, all while dreaming of related anti-capitalist pursuits.”