writer & thinker
For ABC, I wrote about how you can’t separate LGBTIQ issues in China from politics, and why international support is a double-edged sword.
The article is a follow-up to my TV story for China Tonight (video below). You can also watch the full 30-min episode on iview, which includes my chat with Stan Grant about the issue, as well as other stories from the China Tonight team.
A fun review from me in The Guardian today about Baking Impossible, a delightful Netflix series that shows you can have your cake and drive it through an obstacle course too. It’s also a sweet celebration of diverse talent in STEM and the culinary arts.
Since I started teaching, I’ve said yes to every student journalist who’s wanted to interview me in the hopes that it earns karma for my students.
Not sure if that’s an effective strategy, but here are a couple of the stories: I spoke to Swinburne’s The Wind Down podcast about the Chinese video games industry clamping down on queer narratives, and Robbie Mason from USyd’s Pulp mag about freelancing in this economy.
The Wind Down Ep 23 (Spotify/Apple Podcasts/other platforms)
Underpaid, exploited, revolutionary: how freelance writers in Australia battled the pandemic | 11 October 2021, Robbie Mason, Pulp
But essentially space is also land. I think that’s where I contest this differentiation between ‘IRL and URL’ digital and physical space. They aren’t separate. There’s no third space that we occupy online. Our government dictates how we access digital spaces and connections, and infrastructures are imbued by the people who made them.
Sab D’Souza
I loved talking to artist Sab D’Souza about feelings and the internet for the Liminal Magazine x Hyphenated Biennial series. Read it here.
For Liminal magazine, I spoke to Hyphenated Biennial artist Jenna Lee about art versus craft, what’s behind a book cover, and the history of the pearling industry.
We’re back!
Episode 1 aired last night with Annie Louey’s story on 躺平 and mine on queer activists, Angharad Yeo on gaming restrictions, and of course Stan Grant and Yvonne Yong with all the news. Catch up on iview and set your alarms for 9:30pm, Monday nights on ABC TV.
Dr Maddee Clark and I are editing n-SCRIBE 15, the City of Darebin’s annual lit mag, and we’re taking submissions from any writers and artists who live, work or study in Darebin. Send in your best fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir and artwork before 6 October 2021. Published contributors will receive $100. All the info here.
I put together a playlist for Double J – hear and read here.
I was on the radio last week chatting to Tim Shiel about Wuhan punk and Chinese rock music more broadly. Catch up here if you missed it. Big thanks to Tim and Dylan for having me on!
For The Guardian, I wrote about the migrant workers behind the ‘made in Australia’ label and how their winning campaign for equal rights might be instructive for other gig economy workers today.
I talked to Emma Do and Kim Lam, the writer and illustrator of Working From Home, a graphic narrative about Vietnamese outworkers in the garment industry, and Nguyet Nguyen and Beth McPherson, veteran manufacturing workers and organisers in the textile, clothing and footwear union.
Jinghua Qian 