Writing – LARSEN

Writers festival reflections

Any day I get paid be a writer is a good day. So I was delighted to book four writers festival events for the 2025 season – which I am now half-way through.

Why we cancelled our Bendigo Writers Festival panel

I was so looking forward to this weekend’s Bendigo Writers Festival, where I was meant to join Madison Griffiths and Cher Tan as part of the Cities of Literature Book Club to discuss Looking at Women Looking at War by the late Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina.

However, following the decisions and actions of Festival and Presenting Partner La Trobe University this week, and in solidarity with fellow participating writers, we no longer feel able to take part.

Banned. With. collaboration with Absent on Arrival

I will never get over what a gift and a joy it is to make work with artists you admire.

After months of over-excited online plotting, my friend and sound artist Gennaro Sallustio (aka Absent on Arrival) and I were thrilled to release our collaboration on Banned. With., one of the poems from my debut poetry collection, Public. Open. Space. (Fremantle Press, 2023).

AI and arts governance in ArtsHub

Generative AI promises much in arts, cultural and non-profit governance. But beware, there are pitfalls ahead…

And another thing: Meta’s Grand Theft AusLit

Like many others, we were dismayed to learn that mega-corporation Meta has stolen the work of thousands of Australian creators to train the Large Language Model for its flagship AI, Llama 3, without permission, license or compensation – including both editions of The Relationship is the Project.

Westerly reviews Public. Open. Space.

Huge thanks to Ellie Fisher, whose review of Public. Open. Space. was published by Westerly Magazine this week.

My 2024 writing year

Community-engaged practice, for-purpose governance, along with arts and human rights advocacy were the key themes of my 2024 writing year.

Contextually fine

Just over a year ago, I was in holiday in Tasmania with my beloved and besties, and pretty bloody happy about it.

It was early September 2023 and I was hanging and chatting with one of my pals in an outdoor hot-tub another had coaxed into warmth with a smokey wood fire. I felt safe and peaceful and surrounded by love. There may have been wine.

We were talking about my poetry book, which had been out in the world a few months. My spa buddy asked, given my creative practice had taken place almost exclusively online for over a decade, how I had fared with the more dangerous sides of digital space – trolling, censorship or other forms of abuse.

The statements we make

As artists, cultural workers and arts organisations, ours is the business of statement-making.

I was reminded of this recently by the work of Portuguese artist Tiago Casanova, whose installation Every wall is a Statement is currently part of the A liberdade e só a Liberdade exhibition (‘Freedom and only freedom’) at The Art and Culture Center of the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation in Évora.

I was also reminded, less pleasantly, by recent rushed and fumbled public statements made by Australian arts and cultural organisations in response to local and global issues or events like last year’s Voice Referendum (or the need for voice, treaty and truth more broadly) and the ongoing genocide in Palestine — including the statements that many have made with their silence.

Organisational ethics: walking the talk

We live in polycrisis times. In post Voice referendum “Australia”. In the midst of visible local and international legal and human rights abuses. In a decimated sector impacted by an ongoing pandemic, cost of living, climate and mental health crises, and more.

All of which have raised awareness of and reduced tolerance for things we’ve always known. Things we’ve articulated and have been trying to change – if incrementally – through endless research papers, consultations and planning days.