Stories about: books
André Aciman is the critically acclaimed author of Call Me By Your Name and the sprawling Enigma Variations. Ava A spoke with André at the Sydney Writer’s Festival about the thematic elements he uses to produce his powerful prose and the novel-turned-movie that tugged the world’s heart strings. Ava: Can you speak to the significance of exploring queer, …
Samantha X is a British-born, Australian-based, journalist-turned-escort-turned-writer who now also manages her own escort service, Samantha X Angels. When not juggling her own business and client-base, Samantha is frequently sought by the media for her pundit insight into the much maligned and misunderstood sex worker trade. SE: What makes a good client? SX: What makes a good client is reliability, seemingly a …
Krissy Kneen is a Brisbane-based author best known for her erotic fiction, including her most recent novel An Uncertain Grace, published this year by Text Publishing. Stranger in the Dark is Kneen’s ongoing project for Australian literary journal The Lifted Brow, a subscription series of 12 monthly emails being sent out over the course of …
Queer media history: An excerpt from ‘Pink Ink: The Golden Era for Gay and Lesbian Magazines’
This is an excerpt from Pink Ink: The Golden Era for Gay and Lesbian Magazines by Bill Calder, out now. The late 20th century was a golden era for Australian gay magazines and newspapers: more than five million copies of publications were printed annually at its peak, with revenues approaching eight million dollars a year. Yet there …
As an author, taboo is a tricky field to navigate. My desensitisation to certain words and scenarios has been altered through my research and experiences. Depictions of violence, gore and sexual content fuel my curiosity to see how such descriptions guide readers into deciding what is acceptable in narrative and what is taboo. Queer literature …
Popular TV is now littered with lesbians: Orphan Black, The L Word, Sugar Rush, Lip Service, Lost Girl, Glee… need I go on? Cheesy or not, we’re out there in prime time. What draws me to these programs is their realism: lesbians exist in their everyday ordinariness (well, and with superpowers). I can’t say the …
Coming out, coming hard: An excerpt from ‘Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection and Privacy’
“Porn Star Runs for Lord Mayor,” the headlines said, alongside a photograph of me in fuchsia and black latex with a hot pink PVC flogger. If I was going to come out, I may as well do it in style. I’m quite sure my parents knew all along. I started taking my clothes off in …