Category Archives: Ramblings

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‘It doesn’t seem like blogs have as much “power” as they used to’

I have to admit I've been a bad little blogger lately: that is, I've barely read any blogs.

I can trace this back to when I moved from Blogger to WordPress.

See, Blogger has this nifty in-built blog reader thing where you can add blogs to your reader and in a scroll box all the new posts appear.

So I subscribed to roughly one hundred bookish websites, including my own, and every time I'd log into Blogger (on average this was hourly) I'd scroll down the list until I hit my own post recent post: I knew then that I'd read all below that.

This was the perfect way to keep up-to-date with everything and I loved it.

Fast-forward to WordPress which has no such reader.

So everything sort of dropped off the radar.

I'd only read posts that I saw on Facebook or Twitter - few ...

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Mixed Jelly Bean Bag of Bookish News

It's been a while since I've done a mixed bag post and I've missed it!

I have lots of bookish news to share with you - a good ramble is on the way!

[1] Firstly, if you're between 16 and 25 and live, work or study in the cities of Yarra, Hume and Darebin, Whittlesea, Moreland, Banyule, Melbourne City and Nillumbik in Melbourne, you're  ligible to enter a writing competition run by the Yarra Council. It's called Don't Let Gambling Take Over, and it can be in mixed media forms of story-telling; such as written story, photographs, drawings, video or any other kind of media. It looks really interesting and I love the topic: something close to a lot of people's hearts, and a great way to alert young people to the dangers of gambling.

[2] The Emerging Writers' Festival is fast approaching! I ...

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On Book Launches – “Are book launches the new gallery openings?”

There's a really interesting article by Chris Flynn about the ever-increasing number of book launches happening around Australia, on Meanjin.

"It has now reached the stage where in any given calendar week people can attend several book launches or events," Flynn begins, and I have to agree.

"Whilst it is easy to believe book launches are thriving if you live in and around central Melbourne, where many small to medium sized publishing houses are based, a lot of the larger houses are more cautious with regards to the benefits of launches, perhaps understandably so given the financial burden of travel and organisation costs. In many cases it may simply not be worth the publisher’s or author’s time and publicity resources would be better employed elsewhere," Flynn says. He goes onto quote several publicists from large houses who say they rarely hold launches.

At first ...

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Tavi Gevinson

If you don't know Tavi Gevinson, you should get onto her fast.

She's fashion's next big thing, this tiny 15 year old American. She's front row at Fashion Week, giving lectures and editing this fabulous online journal called Rookie.

It's down to earth articles for teenage girls on every topic imaginable.

This morning I saw a link to an interview Tavi did with Tribune reporter Wendy Donahue (I'd embed it but I can't figure out how!) talking about her magazine and teenagers, and it's just so interesting listening to her talk.

Below is another interview I found, a talk that Tavi gave at a conference. She's talking about generation Y, and although it's obviously focused on fashion, it's an interesting take on this - my - generation, how to market to us and everything in between.

Even though I'm not into fashion at all - obviously! ...

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News: I’m Joining the Planet Emerging Writers’ Festival Blog as a Festival Blogger!

Which is very exciting!

If you haven't already, head on over to the EWF Blog, as it draws from a handful of literary bloggers (as well as EWF staffers) who are giving you all the festival goss and general literary news. Officially:

Planet EWF draws in local literary bloggers to give you all the news and views from the festival.

I feel really honoured to be asked to contribute (I may or may not have done a little happy dance). I love EWF; I think they consistently put on a fantastic program to help and nurture emerging and established writers from all over. Their program is always full of variety, interesting, helpful.

Being a part of the blogging team will be so fantastic: I can't wait for the festival!

For your diaries: May 24 – June 3 2012, and the program is out April.

In the ...

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Should Children’s Literature Be Entertaining for Adults too?

First day back at uni and already I am inspired!

Firstly, Toni Jordan. I was over the moon to discover that she is one of my lecturers/tutors this semester. I own both her books, have seen her speak and am just so excited. Her lecture this morning - first one - was laid back and she just spoke with such passion about books and writing - it was really inspiring and made me want to write! Having her for another two hour tutorial was pretty amazing, and I can tell already that she is going to be amazing.

For over two years I've lamented to anyone who'd listen that the diploma got all the good teachers (Sally Rippin, Toni Jordan, Kate Holden and so on) and now we have one! :D (Speaking of, you all heard they're turning the iconic diploma into an associate degree? As ...

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4.30am and Eulogies

Hello to my poor neglected website!

Boy it's been a long time and a rough few weeks.

Firstly, to explain my absence over the past week or so: my grandfather died.

He was sick and in a home, but it happened suddenly (stroke Wednesday, died Friday, funeral yesterday) so since last Wednesday I've been in a crying-and-family bubble and haven't done much else.

I spoke at the funeral, saw people I haven't seen for years and generally was a mess the whole time.

It's hard to believe he's really gone, you know?

I am also very far behind in my new degree considering the lack of study over the past week.

Also, two Saturday's ago my car broke down and on Monday that cost $500 to repair. Fun. Times.

This morning I took my sister and her best friend to the airport - I had to be up at 4.30am! ...

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The Catch-Up

This week has been a-crazy!

Here's why:

1) My housemate and I re-arranged my desk area in my bedroom. It took us over five hours to clean, move and finally re-assemble everything.

Here's the finished picture:

There's a printer behind the television, that's crushed pineapple in the bowl and the red thing on top of the monitor is my childhood alarm clock! I was so excited to find that (buried under piles of crap :P).

(Don't judge my Taylor Swift poster - focus on all the book things! :P)

I decided earlier that day that I missed using the huge desk I got from the side of the road, because that's in the study and not in my room. So I decided to move it!

The jumbled mess of cords under my old, small desk was an electrical hazard: there was three power boards on top of ...

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What Are You Thankful For?

So yesterday it was Thanksgiving in America and despite not being American, I really think the holiday has some good values that the rest of the world could see fit to introduce.

A holiday without presents where everyone gathers around to give thanks for what they have? Yes, please!

(It's also hilariously ironic that they often call it Turkey Day and that I have a picture of a Turkey on here as my nick-name in primary school was Turkey! My surname is Burke, then you go Burkey-Turkey... get it? My best friend even named her new gold fish after me when we were 12, Turkster and Gobbling :P)

However if I ever were to go to America to celebrate it, I wouldn't eat the Turkey  - ewww! My best friend always refers to that as me not wanting to be a cannibal by ...

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Because I Am A Nerd…

This arrived in the mail for me today:

It's a first-edition Virginia Woolf My Moment. It is BEAUTIFUL.

It even came with some old newspaper clippings from the 1960's which are articles about Woolf:

It's pretty much the coolest thing ever. It has the yellowing paper, that delicious old-book smell.

It's golden-embossed spine has 'The Hogarth Press' on it which is just fantastic, and I love love that it is a first edition.

As some of you may know, I collect Woolf like she's going out of fashion. I have all her dairies, all her letters, all her books and essays, almost every biography written on her, and lots on other people in her life: Leonard Woolf, Vita Sackville-West.

I found this in a second-hand bookshop in Lorne (Fowlers, just a great store) when I went a few weeks ago. (Sadly, I was down to my ...