In 2013 we published Martin Thomas's Calibre Prize-winning essay ‘“Because it’s your country”: Bringing Back the Bones to West Arnhem Land'. This powerful story of the repatriation of Aboriginal bones soon became the best read article on our website and we are delighted to be able to launch the ABR podcast with it. The ABR Podcast is available from iTunes and SoundCloud. You can also listen to episodes on our website.

Links

Martin Thomas's Calibre Prize-winning essay ‘“Because it’s your country”: Bringing Back the Bones to West Arnhem Land' published in the April 2013 issue of Australian Book Review.

About Martin Thomas.

The ABR Podcast on iTunes.

The ABR Podcast on SoundCloud.

Information about the Calibre Prize.

Author's Dedication

This reading is dedicated to the memory of Adis Hondo, cinema-photographer on the documentary film described in the essay. Born in the Bosnian city of Mostar in 1956, he found asylum in Australia during the Balkan crisis of the 1990s. In Melbourne he met his partner Suze Houghton who was with him when he died of cancer at Castlemaine, Victoria in December 2015. Adis Hondo, may you rest in peace.

Acknowledgements

Martin Thomas's reading of ''"Because it's your country": Bringing Back the Bones to West Arnhem Land' was recorded and edited at the Australian National University where he is Associate Professor of History. ABR would like to thank Dr Thomas and the staff of ANU for their work on this recording.

The theme music for this podcast is by David McCooey. David's website is www.davidmccooey.com and his début album Outside Broadcast is now available as a digital download. You can listen to more of his work on SoundCloud.

In 2015 we published James McNamara's Ian Potter Foundation Fellowship essay 'The Golden Age of Television', that considers the ascendancy of television drama and its cultural significance. The article was the main feature in our inaugural Film and Television issue in April 2015. The ABR Podcast is available from iTunes and SoundCloud. You can also listen to episodes on our website.

Links

'The Golden Age of Television' published in the April 2015 issue of Australian Book Review.

About James McNamara.

The ABR Podcast on iTunes.

The ABR Podcast on SoundCloud.

Information about past Fellowships.

Acknowledgements

James McNamara: 'I am deeply grateful to The Ian Potter Foundation, AFTRS, Peter Rose, Amy Baillieu, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Ian Collie, Andy Ryan, Matthew Dabner, Nell Greenwood, Mike Jones, Steve Vidler, Chris Phillips, Matthew Campora, Rebecca McNamara, Ken McNamara, and Randall Fields.'

The theme music for this podcast is by David McCooey. David's website is www.davidmccooey.com and his début album Outside Broadcast is now available as a digital download. You can listen to more of his work on SoundCloud.

In 2015, ABR published Ashley Hay's Dahl Trust Fellowship essay, titled 'The Forest at the Edge of Time', that examines ‘what our mongrel trees tell us about our past, the present, and the future’. The essay was the main feature in our October 2015 Environment issue. The ABR Podcast is available from iTunes and SoundCloud. You can also listen to episodes on our website.

'The Forest at the Edge of Time' was published in the October 2015 issue of Australian Book Review.

About Ashley Hay.

The ABR Podcast on iTunes.

The ABR Podcast on SoundCloud.

Information about past Fellowships.

The theme music for this podcast is by David McCooey. David's website is www.davidmccooey.com and his debut album Outside Broadcast is now available as a digital download. You can listen to more of his work on SoundCloud.

Background music 'The jazz piano' by www.bensound.com

ABR's NSW 'States of Poetry' anthology was launched by state editor Elizabeth Allen and ABR Editor Peter Rose, at Gleebooks in Sydney earlier this year. ABR's esteemed Laureate David Malouf introduced the magazine's first Laureate's Fellow Michael Aiken who read extracts from his Fellowship project, 'Satan Repentant', an epic poem about themes of contrition. Elizabeth Allen, then introduced the six NSW poets who contributed their works to the anthology: David Malouf, Susie Anderson, Pam Brown, Toby Fitch, Kate Middleton, and Fiona Wright.

 The ABR Podcast is available from iTunes and SoundCloud.

You can learn more about States of Poetry and listen to the full States of Poetry Podcasts.


Information about past ABR Fellowships

The theme music for this podcast is by David McCooey. David's website is www.davidmccooey.com and his debut album Outside Broadcast is now available as a digital download. You can listen to more of his work on SoundCloud.

Catherine Noske, editor of Westerly Magazine, recently spent time at the ABR office in Melbourne, thanks to a week-long cultural exchange of sorts provided by the Australia Council. Catherine was offered insights into the inner workings of our magazine, and the processes leading up to the launch of our August Fiction issue.

In the most recent ABR Podcast, Catherine spoke to Peter Rose about her time with ABR, and the exciting new developments at Westerly, including the launch of their latest issue, celebrating indigenous writing and culture.

Register here to attend the launch of Westerly's latest issue (61.1) on 17 August 2016 in Fremantle, WA.

The ABR Podcast is available from iTunes and SoundCloud. 

The theme music for this podcast is by David McCooey. David's website is www.davidmccooey.com and his debut album Outside Broadcast is now available as a digital download. You can listen to more of his work on SoundCloud.

The 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize ceremony was held at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 27 August. The event was compèred by ABR Deputy Editor, Amy Baillieu, with opening remarks from poet and author Maxine Beneba Clarke.

Ian Dickson announced that Josephine Rowe was this year's overall winner of the Jolley Prize for her story 'Glisk'.  Anthony Lawrence placed second for his story 'Ash' and Jonathan Tel came third for his story 'The Water Calligrapher's Women'. Subscribers can read all three shortlisted stories in the August 2016 Fiction issue. We would like to congratulate all three shortlisted entrants and thank all those who entered their stories.

ABR gratefully acknowledges the support of Mr Ian Dickson.

ABR's first US tour is in full swing, and Peter Rose has been to the Metropolitan Opera to interview Stuart Skelton as he prepares to become the first Australian to sing Tristan in the new production of Wagner's masterpiece 'Tristan und Isolde, which opens the 2016/17 Met season on September 26. Skelton talks about Marius Trelinski's new production, his own 'year of Tristan', and whether he will sing again with Opera Australia in the near future.

In Washington, DC, Peter Rose and regular ABR theatre critic Ian Dickson discuss the career and legacy of Edward Albee, the great American playwright who died on Friday 16 September, aged 88.

In this week’s ABR podcast Peter Rose talks to Colin Golvan QC – a lawyer specialising in intellectual property – about new threats to Australian creativity, chiefly the proposed removal of restrictions on parallel importation, as recommended by the Productivity Commission.

Colin Golvan's article 'The god of cheaper prices: New threats to our literary culture from the Productivity Commission' appears in the November Arts issue of Australian Book Review.

Peter Rose interviews American Soprano Amber Wagner for the ABR Podcast following the first cycle of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, which is being presented in Melbourne by Opera Australia. Amber Wagner plays the role of Sieglinde in the second opera Die Walküre.

The ABR Podcast is available via SoundCloud and iTunes.

Michael Halliwell interviews Australian composer, violist, and conductor Brett Dean for the ABR Podcast. Dean composed the opera Bliss based on the Peter Carey novel, and was for many years a violist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He was the Artistic Director of the Australian National Academy of Music(ANAM) in Melbourne, and is now an artist in residence at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He is currently finishing his opera adaptation of Hamlet to première at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in June 2017.

The ABR Podcast is available via SoundCloud and iTunes.

The music featured is 'Harry's Vision' from the opera 'Bliss' (Opera Australia/ABC Classics)

Gabriel García Ochoa reports back from Mexico following the US election in his article 'The City of Palaces' which appears in the January-February issue of Australian Book Review.

The ABR Podcast is available via SoundCloud and iTunes.

ABR Podcast intro music by David McCooey

Other music by danosongs.com and bensound.com

Comments by Donald Trump on Mexican people: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo-7ISmwAi0

Peter Rose interviews ABR contributor Lee Christofis, who recently attended a number of exhibitions in Paris showcasing works by Léon Bakst, Cy Twombly, and Arnold Schoenberg among others. His visit coincided with the fortieth birthday of the Pompidou Centre. Lee's 'Letter from Paris' appears in ABR Arts.

The ABR Podcast is available via SoundCloud and iTunes.

ABR Podcast intro music by David McCooey

Other music by danosongs.com and bensound.com

On Thursday, March 23, 2017, Australian Book Review held a ceremony at the Collected Works Bookshop to announce the winner of the 2017 Peter Porter Poetry Prize. The joint winners were - Louis Klee (Vic) for his poem ‘Sentence to Lilacs’ and Damen O’Brien (Qld) for ‘pH’

The winners were chosen from a field of nearly 1000 entries from twenty-two countries. Other shortlisted poets were Ronald Dzerigian (USA), Anthony Lawrence (NSW), Michael Lee Phillips (USA), Jen Saunders (NSW), and Jessie Tu (NSW). The seven shortlisted poems appear in ABR’s March 2017 issue.

Thanks again to our judges – Ali Alizadeh, Jill Jones and Felicity Plunkett – and to all the poets who entered the 2017 Porter Prize.

We gratefully acknowledge the long-standing support of Ms Morag Fraser AM, and the support of ABR Patrons.

'The recent debate about same-sex marriage has been one of the most unseemly episodes in our recent history. A legal entitlement that has been endorsed by untold opinion polls has again been delayed because of internecine strife in the federal coalition. A postal ballot with dubious legal weight or status will further delay same-sex marriage and result in a divisive public debate – at quite a cost too. How far would $120 million go in our schools, our hospitals, our theatres, our laboratories? Yet again, gays and lesbians will be talked about and debated in ways that heterosexuals would find insufferable.'

Listen to ABR Editor Peter Rose's Comment on the same-sex marriage debate.

Read ABR Editor Peter Rose’s Comment on the same-sex marriage debate.

Eliza Robertson won the 2017 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize for her story ‘Pheidippides’. Author David Malouf announced Eliza Robertson as the overall winner at a ceremony at Potts Point Bookshop, Sydney. Dominic Amerena placed second for his story ‘The Leaching Layer’ and Lauren Aimee Curtis came third for her story ‘Butter’.

Subscribers can read all three shortlisted stories in the August 2017 Fiction issue.

The ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize is one of the country’s most prestigious awards for short fiction. This year the Jolley Prize attracted almost 1,200 entries from forty-two different countries. The 2017 Jolley Prize was judged by ABR Deputy Editor Amy Baillieu, and authors Ellen van Neerven and Chris Flynn.

Peter Rose: 0:00 – 7:55
David Malouf: 7:56 – 12:45
Amy Bailleu: 14:15 – 18:22
Dominic Amerena: reads ‘The Leaching Layer’: 20:00 – 24:24
Lauren Aimee Curtis: reads ‘Butter’: 24:55 – 31:00
Eliza Robertson reads ‘Pheidippides’: 31:47 – 36:25
David Malouf announces the winner of the 2017 Jolley Prize: 36:56

From the Herbig family who lived in a hollowed out tree trunk to Dr Bosisto’s ‘Syrup of Red Gum’, from the trauma and regeneration of bushfires to the ill-fated Burnside Village tree, the Tree of Knowledge, and the ‘dig tree’ - how can we understand Australia’s complex relationship with the eucalypt? The October 2017 Environment issue of Australian Book Review includes the third ABR Eucalypt Fellowship essay, ‘Ambassadors from Another Time’ by South Australian novelist Stephen Orr, in which he examines Australia’s evolving understanding of these iconic trees.

Stephen Orr studied ecology at university before starting to write fiction. He has taught Biology, Agriculture, and English. He especially loves novels about science and our sometimes difficult relationship with the natural world. His most recent novel, The Hands (2015), describes a farming family trying to scratch a living from drought affected grazing country. His most recent novel is Datsunland (UQP, 2017), which was reviewed in the June-July 2017 issue of Australian Book Review.

This $7,500 Fellowship is funded by Eucalypt Australia and we acknowledge their generous support.

Music featured in this podcast comes from the 2017 album The Double by David McCooey, which can be listened to and downloaded via Spotify.

This essay appeared in the October 2017 issue of Australian Book Review. To purchase a copy of the print edition, or to access the essay online, please visit our Subscriptions page. Subscriptions start from just $10.

ABR Deputy Editor Dilan Gunawardana spoke to Greg Sestero: actor, model, author and co-star of the 'best/worst film ever made', The Room (2003).

His award-winning memoir The Disaster Artist: My life inside The Room, the greatest bad movie ever made chronicles the film's production and Greg's relationship with its creator, the enigmatic Tommy Wiseau. It was recently adapted into a film directed by and starring James Franco as Tommy Wiseau (In select cinemas now).

Audio from the trailer of the The Disaster Artist is courtesy of Roadshow Films/A24.

Background music is courtesy of www.bensound.com

Each year, ABR’s prestigious Calibre Essay Prize, one of the world’s leading prizes for a new essay, attracts some of the finest writers from Australia and overseas.

Last year, the first prize of $5,000 was awarded to Michael Adams, an associate professor of Human Geography at the Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research at the University of Wollongong. Before that, Michael worked for environment NGOs, the national parks service, and Aboriginal organisations. His focus is on human–nature relationships, especially with Indigenous and local communities, and he likes full-immersion methodologies. He writes in a wide variety of forms, including narrative non-fiction, online essays and peer-reviewed academic articles.

His Calibre Prize-winning essay ‘Salt Blood’, is a thought-provoking and original meditation on human evolution, the practice of freediving, and his father’s suicide. Few things we published in 2017 had such resonance with readers. We weren’t surprised when it was included in Black Inc.’s Best Australian Essays 2017.

To read 'Salt Blood' by Michael Adams, visit the June-July 2017 issue in the ABR Online archive.

To subscribe to Australian Book Review, visit our Subscriptions page.

Music by www.bensound.com

Edited, produced, and introduced by Dilan Gunawardana, Deputy Editor (Digital) at Australian Book Review.

Peter Rose spoke to Beejay Silcox, recipient of Australian Book Review Fortieth Birthday Fellowship, about developments at ABR since the revival of the magazine's second series in 1978. Beejay also discusses her Fellowship essay, 'Defying the moment', an engaging in-depth look at Australian magazine culture featuring interviews with several leading editors: Jonathan Green (Meanjin), Nick Feik (The Monthly), Amy Middleton (Archer), Mindy Gill (Peril), Rebecca Starford (Kill Your Darlings), and Jacinda Woodhead (Overland).

You can read Beejay Silcox's essay 'Defying the moment' in the April 2018 issue of ABR.

To subscribe to Australian Book Review, visit our Subscriptions page.

Music by www.bensound.com and David McCooey.