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at further while he thinks that flower s book is the better of the two aussies he says she just cannot resist the feminine love for tidying up mace s novel which has some reasonably good word pictures of the victorian countryside but not so good as pat flowers sydney scenes also unfortunately suffers from the female tidying up complex feminism still has battles to fight but reviewers would be unlikely to get away with this today incidentally several of pat rose s novels have been republished in the 2020s i found much more and might write a part 2 next week we ll see meanwhile i hope this post has piqued your interest about 1961 sources besides those linked in the post 1961 in australian literature wikipedia joy hooton and harry heseltine annals of australian literature 2nd ed oup 1992 teri merlyn review of frank hardy and the literature of commitment edited by paul adams and christopher lee book review australian literary studies 22 1 2005 previous year club monday musings 1925 1929 1936 1937 1940 1952 1954 1962 and 1970 do you plan to take part in the 1961 club and if so how stella prize 2026 shortlist announced april 8 2026 whispering gums 16 comments past performance they say is no indicator of future performance but when it comes to me past performance is often a very good indicator what i mean is that once again i have not done well at having read the stella prize shortlist at the time of its announcement in recent years the most i ve read at the time of the announcement has been two in 2019 last year i d read one and this year i will finish one of them tonight but the review may not come until next week given my busy ness right now i watched the announcement live on stella s youtube channel at 6 30pm tonight stella ceo fiona sweet opened the event with toni morrison s famous quote that if there s a book that you want to read but it hasn t been written yet then you must write it you can see where this is going can t you her point was that these books that haven t been written yet are what stella is about it is she said an act of bravery to write into silence and fill the gap fiona was followed by stella s founding donor paula mclean she also quoted an author this time an american male author much loved for his nature writing and on my tbr for the longest time barry lopez he said that everything is held together with stories that is all that is holding us together stories and compassion this too is what the stella prize is about both said so much more but i think the recording will be available on the stella website where you can also read all about the shortlist including the judges comments so let s just get on with the main game the shortlist was presented by abc s bookshelf show co host kate evans and kamilaroi gomeroi author and academic dr amy thunig mcgregor they discussed each book in turn teasing out what they liked about the books and identifying in particular the ideas that link many of the books those ideas included the violence in systems and on the positive side the love and relationships people find in community whatever that community is they also talked about how several of the books are formally interesting and sometimes challenging to them like graphic novels the shortlist so 212 books became a longlist of 12 which became a shortlist of 6 and here they are in alphabetical order by author which is also how they were presented evelyn araluen the rot poetry on my tbr cwf session 5 and 6 jonathan s review geraldine brooks memorial days memoir on my tbr kate s review kimbofo s review miranda darling fireweather novel kimbofo s review lee lai cannon graphic novel marika sosnowski 58 facets on violence and the law nonfiction tasma walton i am nannertgarroook novel my review coming soon so 3 fiction including one graphic novel one poetry collection and two works of nonfiction two of the shortlisted authors are first nations writers i am thrilled that i have three of these on my tbr and will in fact finish walton s novel tonight it makes another important contribution to truth telling but more on that in my post as i reported in my recent longlist post this year s judging panel comprises bookseller editor and author jaclyn crupi academic and author sophie gee author screenwriter and broadcaster benjamin law journalist writer and facilitator gillian o shaughnessy author and editor ellen van neerven sophie gee is this year s chair each of the shortlisted authors will receive 5000 with the winner receiving 60 000 the winner will be announced on 13 may i will close with one sentence from the judges from the stella website these six wonderful books reflect the creative vitality literary rigor and expressive richness of australian women s and non binary writing any comments monday musings on australian literature tech noir april 6 2026 april 6 2026 whispering gums 15 comments the genres or perhaps i mean sub genres keep coming recently i ve started hearing about something called tech noir i ve heard for some time of rural or outback or drought noir and have read some in that genre because i love books with a strong sense of place i am also interested in technology and where it is taking us but as you probably know i don t gravitate to futuristic stories so i am not at all familiar with trends in such writing definition i ll start with definitions and with my go to source wikipedia what i found there surprised me though it shouldn t have because this sub genre like many is not limited to fiction wikipedia says that it is a hybrid genre of fiction particularly film combining film noir and science fiction epitomized by ridley scott s blade runner 1982 and james cameron s the terminator 1984 the tech noir presents technology as a destructive and dystopian force that threatens every aspect of our reality it can be characterized by dark urban settings while depicting technology ranging from retrofuturism to classic futurism tech noir combines the high tech worlds of sci fi with the dark gritty and bleak atmosphere of film noir it then says that it is also known as cyber noir future noir neo noir science fiction and science fiction noir and that james cameron coined the term via the name of a nightclub in the terminator it provides some pre history but of course origins are always murky because these movements never appear out of nowhere do check out wikipedia s article if you are interested i m leaving it here because although wikipedia describes tech noir as a genre of fiction particularly film it does not talk about any other type of fiction besides film and of course i am interested in prose fiction aka novels so regarding novels i ve seen the genre described in various ways there s tech noir of course indeed it was references to australian author ashley kalagian blunt being australia s queen of tech noir that inspired this post but i ve also seen terms like electronic crime and high tech crime the point is that this genre blends traditional 1940s noir elements like cynical investigators moral ambiguity and atmospheric settings with futuristic or high tech elements like ai cybercrime and the dark web the stories tend to be urban and focus on modern concerns about privacy identity and security not to mention issues like corporate greed the misuse of technology is common and stories will often confront existential questions about what it means to be human like 1940s noir tech noir is grounded in anxieties about the future which is usually seen as bleak just how far this bleakness extends can vary noir stories are by definition bleak or dark the world if not always doomed is seen through a dark lens but there can be humour most likely satirical and the endings aren t necessarily depressing or so i believe tech noir s precursors can be found in cyberpunk with books like philip k dick s 1968 do androids dream of electric sheep and william gibson s 1984 neuromancer classics now i know but i haven t read them according to wikipedia neuromancer is set in a near future dystopia and follows case a computer hacker enlisted into a crew by a powerful artificial intelligence and a traumatised former soldier to complete a high stakes heist i must say this feels a bit like a case of today s tech noir is yesterday s cyberpunk wikipedia describes cyberpunk as using elements from crime fiction particularly hardboiled detective fiction and film noir and postmodernist prose to describe an often nihilistic underground side of an electronic society what do you think tech noir in australia my research into australian writers in this field brought up dorothy johnston see my posts on her wikipedia says that her 2000 published novel the trojan dog was one of the first australian novels to give electronic crime a central place however despite those references i found to ashley kalagian blunt as australia s tech noir queen i have to say that my internet searches did not produce a large number of writers in this field and most of those i list below do not seem to write exclusively or even mainly in this field but i am out of my comfort zone so i might have missed something big selected australian tech noir novels ashley kalagian blunt dark mode 2023 sydney based thriller about a series of murders linked to the dark web like follow die 2025 psychological thriller examining the impact of online radicalism cybercrime and online forums on real world violence andrew croome midnight empire my review 2012 thriller about drone warfare fought in the middle east from the nevada desert dorothy johnston the trojan dog 2000 canberra set crime about computer fraud and bureaucracy zane lovitt black teeth 2016 melbourne based noir with a tech focus featuring a computer geek whose day job is to search the internet to confirm that people s cvs are real jonathan macpherson brazen violations 2016 high tech thriller about a cop who has a bugging device implanted in his chest allowing him to be controlled by a criminal family as you see a small list i did find a couple of others but not many except for blunt s novels these are ten or more years old i know some readers of my blog i m looking at you bill in particular might know more i d love anyone who has read in this area to leap in and correct any misconceptions i have and or expand on what i have said so over to you do you read tech noir and if so i d love to hear your thoughts and your favourites six degrees of separation from the correspondent to april 4 2026 april 3 2026 whispering gums 37 comments this month s sixdegrees occurs the weekend we here in australia celebrate or commemorate depending your point of view easter yes i know that we are not the only country to do this but i also know that not all countries make it a four day weekend as we do so i just thought i d share this little bit of aussie culture the other point of course is that for us it is autumn so all the spring focused cards and decorations that we used to be and still do tend to be regaled with really don t make literal sense for us now having burbled on too much i ll move on to the meme starting with the usual reminder that if you don t know this meme and how it works please check kate s blog booksaremyfavouriteandbest the first rule is that kate sets our starting book this month she nominated a book i haven t read though i have been told i would like it virginia evans the correspondent from what i ve heard i suspect it would be up my alley but whether i ll get to it is another thing it is apparently about a 73 year old woman who writes letters every morning to friends family and others including apparently someone to whom she never actually mails the letter it is also apparently an epistolary novel as the story is told through these letters and emails the obvious thing for me would be to link to an epistolary novel but most of those i ve reviewed here i ve linked before and i don t feel like going down that path instead i m going down the 70 something woman path charlotte wood s the weekend my review features not one or two but three 70 something women the story takes place over a weekend during which they come together to clear out the house of the recently departed fourth member of their group without her as their glue their relationship is tested but the centre holds in the end the women in the weekend are not your stereotypical older woman the invisible grandma who cooks and knits for the family they are professional women who are facing aging and ageism and are still actively engaged in life ready to fight for what they want when they are not arguing amongst themselves another character who is definitely not your stereotypical sweet old lady is elizabeth strout s olive kitteridge my review she is retired and moves into her 70s during the novel but is still a force around town compassionate at times but definitely not the cuddly apple pie type another strong older 70 something woman albeit getting us into grandmother territory is the protagonist in elizabeth jolley s orchard thieves my review this is a deliciously wise and meditative warm and witty book about generations seen from a grandmother who worries about her daughters and grandsons and uses all the wisdom she can to re stabilise rising tensions there are no pat answers but a realistic understanding of the changes we all go through in life and how those changes impact family relationships as stresses financial health the pressures of just plain living rise and fall shining a very different light on ageing women is thea astley in her memorable novella coda my post kathleen s age is not given but she must be at least 70s the point is she is moving into dementia i m losing my nouns is the novel s opening line this is a witty but darkly clear eyed interrogation of ageing and the loss of agency that comes with it with or without dementia really and of children who are unable to cope let alone empathise with what is happening to their mother another older woman who is losing her memory is 75 year old ruth in fiona mcfarlane s the night guest my review this is not a satirical novel like astley s but its subject matter including ageing the loss of agency and duty of care are similar mcfarlane tells her story through a number of visitors and or visitations real and imaginary and keeps us about as unsettled as ruth is while we try to comprehend what is going on for her another woman living alone but not experiencing dementia is rabih almeddine s 72 year old divorced childless protagonist in an unnecessary woman my review living in beirut she is a reader and a translator of the books she reads into arabic it is her life s work though her translations are never published she has lived through war both lonely and alone she is aware of how others see her and of challenges to come but when i read it i was most interested in what she had to say about reading and literature i did something different this month which was to stick with one theme older women protagonists most ended up bei...