Category: Australiana

  • Ep 24: Sea-creature days with Kavita Bedford, author of Friends and Dark Shapes

    In Friends & Dark Shapes, author Kavita Bedford uses the term sea-creature days, ‘Days when things that lurk beneath the surface start to come up and feel a little stronger in day-to-day life than they normally do.’ We’ve all had days like that. In episode 24 of James and Ashley Stay at Home, we interview […]

  • Ep 22: Are you equating Vegemite to urine? with Nash, artist and author

    Nash is not only the owner of a bad-ass mononym, he’s also an artist and now first-time author, and the latest guest on James and Ashley Stay at Home. A Sri Lanka-born multi-disciplinary designer and artist, Nash has been based in Melbourne since 2012. His work is both cynical social commentary and an account of […]

  • The Cyclops Horse and other monsters

    Steve and I are eating vegan this February, so on the 14th we celebrated what is now known as Vegantine’s Day. Normally we don’t do much (sometimes the best gift is low expectations). But since the Chau Chak Wing Museum recently opened at the University of Sydney, Steve suggested visiting it together. It turned out […]

  • Ep 18: Learning how to learn with Nardi Simpson, author of Song of the Crocodile

    “What I would ultimately like, you know, my huge big goal [for the book, is that] people can look back on this and say, ‘You know, there are bits in that – as a non-Indigenous person – I didn’t understand, but that’s okay, and I don’t need to acquire and learn and make meaning for […]

  • 2020: The reading year in review

    In 2020, I read far more fiction (61%) than non-fiction (39%). This is unusual for me; I generally prefer non-fiction. But it continues a trend that started in 2019. I suspect we all need more escapism these days. I continued to support Australian authors, women authors and debut authors, and aimed to read more authors […]

  • Moving across oceans to create a new life

    After moving from India to Sydney in 2019, Khyati Sharma became inspired to share the stories of fellow expats and migrants through a new online project called Immigrants in Australia, modelled after Humans of New York. Since launching in September, she’s shared the stories of people from all over the world, including India, China, South […]

  • Yes, exploding spider babies are real

    One of my favourite things to do in Australia is ask people for their spider stories. Everyone who’s lived here has at least one good one. I wrote about a few of them, including one of my own, in How to Be Australian. After nearly 10 years in Australia, I started to think maybe there […]

  • The Bodies History Hides

    How do dominant historical narratives keep hidden the lives and deaths of others, and what do these narratives cost us? From the colonisation of Indigenous lands to the Armenian genocide to the Holocaust, this conversation explores bodies hidden by history, and how writing can work toward a recovery of their stories. Part of the 2020 […]

  • Canada vs Australia triple-layered dessert face-off

    Canada doesn’t have caramel slices. At least, not exactly. When I was growing up, my mom made a dessert called Eagle Brand squares. These had a graham cracker base (a kind of sweet plain biscuit), not ground up but simply dropped into the pan, like floor tiles. The middle was a sort of oozy, pale […]