writer & thinker
This sold out very quickly so sorry to tease you if you didn’t get tickets, but Liz and I are doing a talk at Chestnut Tree Bookshop in West Footscray tonight!
It’s on reading, researching and writing Melbourne’s West. Liz is bringing a bag of rocks. I am powerless to stop her. See you soon – and if you missed out, we’re doing another event soon at Williamstown Library, so watch this space (hit subscribe!).
Omar Sakr and I spoke to Jacobin’s Chris Dite about State Library Victoria, the escalating persecution of pro-Palestine workers in arts and media, and how workers across industries are joining together to fight back.
Genocide is impolite to talk about but not to enact. Safety means Zionists’ feelings and not Palestinians’ lives.
Like many of us, I’ve felt wary of drawing focus from the daily atrocities in Palestine to comparatively petty art world disputes here. I worry the story becomes one of cultural contestation instead of genocide.
But Israel’s genocide relies upon misinformation, censorship & propaganda. Misinformation and media bias have been critical in engineering impunity. I think the Library’s framing of ‘child and cultural safety’ is important, and dangerous, and deliberate.
For six months we have seen Israeli propaganda deny that Palestinian children are children. Think of Deborah Conway on ABC Radio National when asked about all the children killed: ‘Well it depends what you call kids.’ So I think this perversion of ‘child and cultural safety’ needs to be directly challenged.
In November last year I was invited to imagine a parallel world without gender as part of an event at Melbourne Conversations. ABC recently broadcast those dispatches from the multiverse on Big Ideas with Natasha Mitchell, you can hear it here.
I’m doing a gig next week where I’m gonna read all my best Lex posts. It’s not so much sexy poetry, more a microblog from the doldrums. Miserotica, if you will. Come have a laugh at my expense or buy me a drink.
Dinner Party Press presents Feminist Erotica
with Katia Ariel, Amy Brown, Joan Fleming and Jinghua Qian
Saturday 17 February 2024
7 pm
Willows and Wine, Wurundjeri country
315 Victoria Street, West Melbourne VIC 3003
Book here
Calling all teen writers: I’m hosting an 8-week bootcamp with State Library Victoria on journalism and non-fiction writing later this year. Interested? Come to the online info sesh on 8 Feb 2024 to find out more.
All sessions are free, open to writers across Australia aged 13 to 18.
As well as my bootcamp on journalism and non-fiction, there’s YA fiction with Alison Evans, poetry with Omar Sakr, playwriting with Jessica Bellamy, sci-fi and fantasy with Amie Kaufman, and comics with Ariel Slamet Ries.
Roll up, roll up! It’s a speculative time travel game at Queen Vic Market!
Back after being thwarted by Covid, Worth While is a live roleplay that Mick and I created through the Testing Grounds’ Public Art Park residency next to QVM. We’re running just one session on Saturday 9 December.
We wanted to make something fun and spiky – something that pokes breathing holes in how we think about cost, value and the market, that also has space for different feelings. Softness and silliness and homesickness. The smell of fish and the squish of a persimmon. So somehow we ended up with time travel.
It’s free, fun and possibly the momentary break from this reality you need right now:
Worth While
Saturday 9 December 2023
11 am to 12 pm
Testing Grounds, Queen Victoria Market
Free | book here
Worth While is a live-action time travel game exploring what value really is.
Take on a new identity as a traveller from the year 2100. Go through a time machine to the market in 2023 where you can hunt for bargains and treasures to take home to the future. Then show and tell your fellow travellers what you found so you can pass through customs.
We look backwards to taking you to the past!
Today a new group of rank-and-file members of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance have published an open letter standing in solidarity with Palestine against genocide.
Our letter has also been published today in Overland, where it stands alongside statements from artists, academics, booksellers and other groups who bear witness to the insidious and escalating censorship taking place in all areas of culture when it comes to Palestine. And of course Overland has published lots of great Palestinian writing over the years, and was the first publication in Australia to sign onto the MEAA Freelance Charter of Rights. They’ve been copping a lot of abuse for their position so please also subscribe and support Overland if you can.
On Wednesday night, I’m doing a talk with an excellent bunch of people, hosted by The Parallel Effect as part of Melbourne Conversations. A moment of collective otherworldly imagination between actions. Also it’s free and there’s catering!
I’ve been to a parallel world
Wednesday 8 November 2023
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
The Wheeler Centre, 167 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Free – book here
Full event info including accessibility details here
What if you could learn from a person who has been to another world? This event takes the premise at the heart of The Parallel Effect project – that an untold number of universes exist alongside each other – and invites you to gain direct access to some of our reality’s most fascinating thinkers as they describe the histories, structures and systemic workings of the parallel worlds they have visited, in detail.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a speculative time travel roleplaying game at Queen Vic Market!
For the last couple of months I’ve been doing this very cute public art residency with a whole bunch of folks, over at the new Testing Grounds site next to Queen Victoria Market. Basically every Thursday we hear a talk, make lunch together, then chat about art and capitalism and ecology and whatnot while we eat. Then we have a play and test out our ideas on each other. We all arrived with a rough idea of something we wanted to do for Public Art Park, but I think everyone’s work has changed a bit through the process of chopping tomatoes and sipping endless cups of coffee.
I’ve been collaborating with Mick and we wanted to make something fun and spiky – something that pokes breathing holes in how we think about cost, value and the market, that also has space for different feelings. Softness and silliness and homesickness. The smell of fish and the squish of a persimmon. So somehow we ended up with time travel.
Worth While is a live-action time travel game exploring what value really is.
Take on a new identity as a traveller from the year 2100. Go through a time machine to the market in 2023 where you can hunt for bargains and treasures to take home to the future. Then show and tell your fellow travellers what you found so you can pass through customs.
We look backwards to taking you to the past!
We’re running three sessions on Sunday 15 October and you can get your free tickets here.
And check out the full program of Public Art Park ’23 – there’s lots of cool stuff from a slow walking race to cooking workshops.
Super excited to announce that the State Library is supporting The Drop-In, my advice program for emerging writers.
We’re running two sessions online (one with guest cohost Arlie Alizzi, editor at Magabala and one of my fave essayists) and two onsite at SLV. Come along to pick our brains and ask all your burning questions about writing, editing, and getting paid and published!
The Drop-In is open to all, with priority for First Nations, trans/nonbinary/genderfluid and international student writers. Places are limited so register asap.
More info about how The Drop-In works here.
The Drop-In at State Library Victoria
Session 1 (Studio 1, SLV): Saturday 23 September 2023, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Session 2 (Studio 1, SLV): Saturday 23 September 2023, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Session 3 (online): Sunday 24 September 2023, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Session 4 (online): Sunday 24 September 2023, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
State Library Victoria, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne VIC 3000.
Free | Register your interest here
Jinghua Qian 