An article in Melbourne's Age reports leading child experts -including Getting Real contributors- calling for a ban on adult magazines in newsagents, milk bars, convenience stores, supermarkets and petrol stations.
Plus there's another interesting piece in the Age by Emily Maguire on 'bad girl backlash'.
Long out of print, Spinifex Press is releasing Remember the Tarantella as an eBook this week. Remember the Tarantella is a novel that leads readers on a merry dance. It could be a dance to keep away the forces of death, but really it’s a dance of thrilling life.
Helen Daniel said of Remember the Tarantella: 'A visionary and questing novel of startling energy, intelligence and passion, its form shaped to its own image. It is the work of a major writer.'
Poetry To Pages: Jordie Albiston at Readings Carlton
Lizz Murphy, writer of Two Lips Went Shopping and editor of Wee Girls is facilitating a workshop in Goulburn called 'Time to Write'.
Lizz Murphy invites you to take a walk with words. A walk through memory or imagination, a walk through town or around a corner shop, a walk by the river, a walk through your own day … Turn your walks into poems or prose pieces. Add detail, develop your characters, pick up your step, pick up the pieces... Go for a real walk (just a short one, weather permitting). You never know what you might find. Exercises to get you thinking, remembering, imagining, writing. Tips on writing challenges. Whether you are an aspiring writer or an old hand take TIME TO WRITE.
Date: Saturday March 27 10.00 am – 3.30 pm Venue: Goulburn Library Civic Centre Address: Bourke Street, Goulburn Cost: $25/$15 unwaged, members of ACTWC or Miles Published writer
Taking the three related concerns of development, ecology and gender, Staying Alive argues that there is an intimate link between the degradation of women and the degradation of nature in contemporary society. Viewing economic development as more often ‘maldevelopment’, Shiva outlines how science, technology and politics exploit and marginalise both women and nature.
This edition of Shiva’s ecofeminist classic includes a new introduction penned by the author. The introduction highlights the fact that the core message of Staying Alive—the brutalisation of women and nature and how this creates an unsustainable future—is sadly even more urgent today than when it was first written.
In 2006, the poet, her partner and their dog sat through the extreme winds of Cyclone Larry, a Category-5 cyclone that hit the coast of Far North Queensland. Located at the southern edge of the cyclone – the eyewall – with winds at their most ferocious, these poems explore the period before the cyclone, the event itself and the aftermath.
Earth’s Breath joins other Spinifex titles in the transition to an electronic format, and is among the fi rst to be released in the industry-created open standard ePub. Earth’s Breath will also be available in PDF, Mobipocket and Microsoft Reader formats.
Louise Newman, Getting Real contributor, speaks in a brief news story on ABC News about the dangers of the increased sexualisation of children in our society. You can view the clip on the ABC's website here.
This Saturday 20 March, Susan Hawthorne's book Earth's Breath will be featured on Poetica on Radio National. The show will run at 3pm, and be repeated at 3pm the following Thursday. You an also download the podcast after the event at the Poetica website.
22nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards: finalists announced
The finalists have been annunced for the 22nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards, honouring the finest lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans literature available in the United States. This year there are 112 finalists across 23 categories.
“This has been a record year for queer books,” said the 2009 Lambda Awards Administrator, Richard Labonté, who has been associated with the Lammys since their inception in 1989 as a judge and consultant. “The number of titles nominated and the number of publishers represented is in both cases about 10 per cent higher than last year.”
The clip is just one more thing catering to pornographic male fantasies, part of a broader cultural story being read by young people forming their understanding of relationships and sexuality.
Women, aka bitches, love being violent to other bitches. Girl-on-girl action, lesbian cliches. Nakedness. Voyerism. Exhibitionism. Objectification. And what's so counter-cultural about groin-emphasising costumes, shredded fishnet stockings and a leopard-skin body suit?
The other is "Self Love" at ABC's The Drum Unleashed website. Melinda talks about John Mayer's recent Playboy interview where he discusses pornography and masturbation, and talks about also the wider effects of pornography on boys.
Mayer's ode to self-love shows how pornography has influenced his attitudes to women. Impatient with women in the flesh, he has turned to the image of a woman for his habitual computer sex. Porn is shaping the thinking of younger boys as well.
Boys who watch porn are more likely to think sexual harassment is acceptable and less likely to form successful relationships when they're older, according to Australian researcher Michael Flood.
