GUNCOTTON
Simply the Best: Cordite’s 2011 Top Thirty
Well, this is starting to look like a tradition. We’re proud to present the fourth installment of the Cordite Top Thirty, following humbly in the footsteps of 2008, 2009 and 2010, this time with added bonus commentary. Oh yes, it’s …
Submissions now open for Cordite 38: Sydney
We invite submissions for Cordite 38 on the theme of ‘Sydney’. Given that Cordite was founded in Sydney in 1997, we think that now is a good time to revisit our roots, and what better way to do that than …
Tiny Steps: the Electr(on)ification of Cordite
Cordite 36: Electronica has been a fascinating and challenging issue to put together. It contains forty new poems, fifteen spoken word tracks, a dozen features and, for the first time, a selection of multimedia or ‘e-lit’ works. Bringing together these disparate types of content raises an interesting question for Cordite as an online journal. Have we finally broken through that invisible barrier between ‘text-based journal’ and ‘online journal of electronic literature’?
A Field Report from This is Not Art
It didn’t really sink in that I was going to This is Not Art (TiNA) until about halfway through the flight from Perth to Sydney. I largely did not know what to expect, having done relatively little research beforehand and being chronically distracted by PhD studies/life as I know it.
Visiting the Perth Writer’s Festival
Occurring each year as part of the Festival of Perth, the 2010 Writer's Festival was held on the Labour Day long weekend at the University of Western Australia's Crawley campus, right next to the Swan River. It comprises both local and interstate writers with special guests from overseas and includes poets, novelists and book designers along with local anthology creators, publishing houses and independent publications known affectionately as ‘zines'.
TINA Reflections
Literary festivals happen again and again in Australia but you'll probably miss most of them. Even if you do reside in a major coastal city, then still, you'll miss things. I know. I used to not care so much, but now I read blogs and keep tabs on the activities of a lot of Australian writers; so I am privy to all the festival happenings, all the goss, and I am naturally left feeling left out. Why can't I go to these cool things if so many other people can?
Louis Armand Live at the Globe
[audio:http://cordite.org.au/audio/Louis_Armand_Prague.mp3] Louis Armand live at the Globe Bookstore (15:29) Prague, 15 April 2009
Philip Hammial Live at the Globe
[audio:http://cordite.org.au/audio/Philip_Hammial_Prague.mp3] Philip Hammial live at the Globe Bookstore (13:29) Prague, 15 April 2009
Michael Farrell Live at the Globe
[audio:http://cordite.org.au/audio/Michael_Farrell_Prague.mp3] Michael Farrell live at the Globe Bookstore (10:23) Prague, 15 April 2009
Jill Jones Live at the Globe
[audio:http://cordite.org.au/audio/Jill_Jones_Prague.mp3] Jill Jones live at The Globe bookstore (8:50) Prague, 15 April 2009.
Pam Brown Live at the Globe
[audio:http://cordite.org.au/audio/Pam_Brown_Prague.mp3] Pam Brown live at The Globe bookstore (11:24) Prague, 15 April 2009.
Vale Dorothy Porter
Peter Minter writes: “The second-last day of winter in 1997 seems so far away now, but today I remember it clearly. After her captivating late afternoon reading, Dorothy Porter and I found a corner in the dining room at the Varuna Writers' Centre, Katoomba, the daylight waning outside amidst steely dampness and the trickling departure of friends.”
George Dunford Interviews Paul Auster
Paul Auster's career has meandered from poetry to prose to filmmaking, and gives no indication of slowing down just yet. The Brooklyner spoke to George Dunford about collaboration, word-houses, chasing the perfect page, and his twelfth novel Man in the …
Q&A with Ryan Paine
We've all read those interviews where the interviewer begins by making a few remarks about his or her subject – perhaps something cliched about a 'piercing gaze' or 'bubbly persona' – as a way of easing the reader into what promises to be a puff piece or a booster article …
Straight from the Tank
On January 25, 2003 – the hottest Melbourne day since 1939 – David McLauchlan and Michael Ward began the practice of filming poetry readings for the Channel 31 TV program “Red Lobster”. As of late 2006, this process continues, and …
Q&A with Nick Carbó
Nick Carbó is the author of three books of poetry, El Grupo McDonald's (1995), Secret Asian Man (2000), and Andalusian Dawn (2004), and the editor of three anthologies of Filipino and Filipino-American literature, Returning a Borrowed Tongue (1995), Babaylan (2000), …
Q&A with Denise Duhamel
The first time I met Nick Carbó and Denise Duhamel was, by chance, in a setting appropriately domestic: the laundrette. I left them to their spin cycle and drip dry, but not before arranging to interview them (separately) in their …
Q&A with Johanna Featherstone
'Featherstone' is actually a physical condition whereby instead of the skeleton being made of bone, it is made of a feather stone. The feather stone's (bone) strength is due to the interweaving feathers inside each piece of bone.
Q&A with Justin Heazlewood
Well I think ever since Primary School probably, everything I wrote had a sort of comedy element to it-I always loved being witty and playing around with words and being a bit silly and breaking rules and it just sort of always stayed with me-especially as a musician. I've got a whole heap of serious songs as well, but no matter how big the crowd is you never get much feedback on them.
Q&A with Ian McBryde
“Domain is without exception the most difficult and challenging poetry collection I have ever tackled. It involved almost four years of steady research and writing. It had a profound effect on me, and caused many a night of uneasy sleep. I found myself quite overcome by a lot of the imagery and literature, which hung around me in a sad, invisible, cloying sort of way.” Ian McBryde talks about his latest collection of poetry.
Bling Fling Thing
[audio:http://cordite.org.au/audio/ezb_bling.mp3] Emilie Zoey Baker Bling Fling Thing It’s booty time, with our unofficial Glitter Queen, Emilie Zoey Baker, strutting her tuff words audibly in mp3 format. Recorded by our former audiovisual editor, Sean M Whelan, this track will soon have …
Q&A with the Spierigs
There are some characters, specifically the cop, who is an extreme example of an Australian personality, and when we thought about the six people who would carry this movie, they would all have to have very distinct personalities and somebody like that is definitely different to the Marian character [he of the three barrelled shotgun fame – ed.] … I mean, there’s never been an Aussie zombie comedy before.
