Brisbane Writers Festival...It's going to be HUGE!

Oh my goodness guys! The Brisbane Writers Festival has released the 2011 program and it is BIG! We sometimes fall beneath Sydney and Melbourne's huge shadows but we are a capital city after all and we've managed to land some huge literary whales this year!

So who is expected this year? Johnathan Franzen, Simone Felici, Linda Jaivin, Phillip Pullman (via video cross though), Emily Rodda, and a litany of other international and national authors, comedians and actors.

It isn't about the names though, not really. For me the really exciting thing about this festival is the exchange of ideas by people who are in the industry of ideas. Over four massive days authors, scientists (the festival usually falls during science week so they have collaborative seminars), journalists, editors, bloggers and many other people talk about everything from "Philosophy in the Digital Age" to "Soundbites and Fury: Political Narrative in the Digital Age" to poetry slams and master-classes. There is literally several somethings for everyone and best of all most of the discussion seminars are free!

Can't stop listening to...Gotye

I've been playing this song on repeat lately, I can't even tell you how much I love it!

I'm not sure if he's infiltrated the international music scene but he's been a rather beloved member of the indie Australia scene for a few years now and for good reason. Gotye (real name Wally Debacker) is an amazing musician who makes incredibly unique and incredibly emotive music. This song is a bit more angsty than his previous singles but it does it so beautifully. I mean... those lyrics, that voice, the musical accompaniment...and Kimbra. It's perfect. It soars. I can't even put into words how much I love this guy, I can't wait for the full album to come out in a few weeks.

If you liked this you really owe it to yourself to check out his full website and really immerse yourself in Gotye's creativity and prolific music.

Unbound: A Writer Meets Reader Project

So thanks to the fabulous Stephen Fry I was sent via his twitter to the website Unbound. In it's most basic form Unbound is a website where authors (some well-known others brand-spankin' new) pitch their novel ideas and readers provide them, through personal donations, the opportunities to kickstart their project. According to the Unbound team this places the power back in the hands of the readers and authors and fosters a greater relationship between the two. Rather than have me explain anymore of this second hand I'm going to suggest you press play on the video below, where the Unbound team tell you in much more detail all the wonderful little details of this website in a nifty little cartoon.




I don't know about you guys but I think this seems like a charming little idea that I'm going to be keeping my eye on over time. Can you imagine how great it would be to have your name in a Stephen King, Neil Gaiman or J.K Rowling book as a vital contributor?! Now I'm not suggesting an author of quite that distinction will be making use of this website, but Terry Jones of Monty Python fame has just had a project successfully supported on the site so I think it is fair to say that this is a project that means business!

Anyway, I thought this was an interesting concept and I wanted to share it with all of you, especially because you're all the bookish type who I know would love the idea of supporting authors in this way! So check out the website and get a bit of a better idea of what they're trying to do and take a look at their tumblr blog while you're at it!

Fallen superheroes

I came across this artist on the Society 6 website and just had to share his work with you all. Known as Boneface, this artist has created an extraordinary series of pictures that show the infallible, superior superheroes we all know and love looking a little worse for wear.