Tag Archives: Jeanette Winterson

Writing from the margins

Posted on February 19, 2015 by

In his primer Astrologik (Vertical Pool, 1999), underground filmmaker and overall maverick Antero Alli argues against legitimising astrology. But not for the reasons you might expect. Astrology happens to be his profession. So it’s his peers who want to look … Continue reading →

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Hairy Tales

Posted on February 15, 2014 by

Ever since I first read The Bloody Chamber (1979), Angela Carter’s influential collection of repurposed fairytales, I’ve been alert to the genre’s potential for subversion. Those old tales that had most deeply impressed a much younger me transmit grim messages … Continue reading →

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In search of the bad girls of literature

Posted on November 28, 2012 by

Over the years, I’ve known two men who professed hatred of Germaine Greer – a woman neither man had ever met. But some men seem to think Ms Greer invented the scourge of feminism. My hatred of public figures whom … Continue reading →

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Soul Trading: how dirty words like entrepreneur are undergoing a digital-age makeover

Posted on October 30, 2012 by

Is it possible, in the second decade of the 21st century, to establish oneself as an author without also being an entrepreneur? NB: I use the word author rather than writer, the Latin root of the former meaning originator and … Continue reading →

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Why Be Private When You Could Be Public? – reflections on Sydney Writers’ Festival

Posted on June 4, 2012 by

In the wake of another late-autumn mass orgy of words and ideas by the water, books lie sprawled across my bed – a volume of visionary poems Allen Ginsberg wrote in the ’50s, because someone told me ‘Howl’ changed his … Continue reading →

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Show & Tell: the best of both worlds

Posted on May 6, 2012 by

‘I was not the first one to find the book. There were notes in the margins…’ So begins ¶2 of Jeanette Winterson’s Art & Lies (1994). And this opening gambit amused me more because it applied to the book before me. … Continue reading →

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