Two new memoirs make blind writer Amanda Tink ‘very proud’ of her community – and share the stories of blind writers, performers, teachers, activists and inventors.
Jessica Kirkman introduces readers to her Deaf grandparents’ experience – and to Deaf culture – in her memoir. And Sam Drummond recalls growing up with pseudoachondroplasia (a form of dwarfism) in his.
Bri Lee, George Saunders (Evan Agostini/AP) and Hanif Kureishi (Nrbelex).
So many authors are creating Substack newsletters – from Bri Lee’s magazine-like News & Reviews, to George Saunders’ writing tips and Hanif Kureishi’s reflections on being paralysed. But can it last?
The hunt for sleep has become a global industry, with apps, drugs, self-help remedies. In a new book, author Marie Darrieussecq contemplates the curse of insomnia.
Tim Flannery with a model set of jaws of a megalodon at the Australian Museum, and, on right, a megalodon tooth.
Photos: Text Publishing, Wikimedia Commons
Megalodons are having a cultural moment. What do we know about them? And might further scientific discoveries reveal more about the true shape and size of these creatures?
John Clarke as a child - ‘the first recorded sighting of Fred Dagg’ - and a youthful Clarke with his wife Helen.
Photos: Lorin Clarke
New memoirs by Rachel Louise Snyder and Steph Lentz chart the territory of being shaped by an ill-fitting version of strict Christianity – and their struggle to free themselves.
Martin Flanagan’s school memoir describes bullying, male violence and abusive priests. But rather than a story of victimhood, it explores the grace and release of sport, finding hope amid darkness.
From new writing on art to books on how the world got to where is politically and environmentally.
A woman relaxes in the pool: in their memoir, Australian writer Kris Kneen describes the freedom they find in the water.
Allgo An App for Plus-size People/Unsplash
Kris Kneen’s ‘exquisite’ memoir about living in a fat body is deeply intimate. It somehow feels even more intimate than their books about sex and desire.
Brenda Matthews’ story is a truth-seeking quest to right the wrongs perpetrated by a government hell-bent on doing ‘as they saw fit’ when it came to Aboriginal peoples, writes Sandra Phillips.
Leo Brophy, on right, pictured in Darwin during the war.
Author provided
Kevin Brophy grew up fearing his violent father. Going through the papers of his war record, he began to wonder if his dad was someone else as a young man — someone he might have enjoyed knowing.
Mark Raphael Baker, author of The Fiftieth Gate.
Paul Philipson
Mark Raphael Baker is best known for two outstanding memoirs, The Fiftieth Gate, exploring his parents’ Holocaust experience, and Thirty Days, about the death of his first wife.
A handwritten note painted on the site of a mass grave of up to 800 children on the site of the former Mother and Baby home in Tuam, Ireland, June 2014.
Aidan Crawley/EPA