Essays & Articles | Work In Progress
John Clarke: A Postscript
Sydney Review of Books, June 2017
It was the day that Seamus Heaney died: August 30, 2013. I hadn’t seen John Clarke since the late 1970s. More than three decades earlier, we had met in the hallways of Radio Triple J in Darlinghurst, when I was half of a young singing duo and he was a fresh-faced Fred Dagg.
On Being Australian: A Provocation
Griffith Review, Jan 2015
My father, Alex Carey, a fourth-generation Australian, was a lefty and an activist, who worked long hours as a university lecturer. But despite – or perhaps because of – being a largely absent father, he was my childhood hero. I marched with him in peace protests and listened to him address anti-war rallies; I wore a Troops Out badge to Sutherland North Primary School and showed photos of napalmed Vietnamese peasants to friends whose older brothers had been conscripted. Like my father, I exerted little influence.
Randolph Stow: An Ambivalent Australian
Kill Your Darlings, Jan 2013
In 1997, when I was asked to suggest nominations for the Australia Council Emeritus Awards, Randolph Stow seemed a perfect candidate. I wrote to him to request permission. Even his address was enigmatic: Fishpond Cottage, East Bergholt, Suffolk. Stow responded promptly and politely, grateful for my gesture, but pointed out that he was now a British citizen and that this might make him ineligible...
The Shire Revisited
The Australian, 4 Aug 2012
I was born in Sutherland hospital and brought home to a weatherboard house in Kirrawee that my father boasted had been built from an old boat.
Puberty to The Shire: reality is not pretty
Sydney Morning Herald, 24 Jul 2012
An opinion piece reflecting on our addiction to television and what The Shire (the show) says about viewers. This piece is very much inspired by David Foster Wallace’s wonderful essay E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction (1993). I am also indebted to the research work of UTS postgraduate Annabel Stafford.
Cronulla riots blues
Sydney Morning Herald, 16 Dec 2005
The first page of Puberty Blues describes South Cronulla, the lowest rung of the beach hierarchy, as Dickheadland, where “the uncool kids from Bankstown (Bankies)” hung out. Strangely, not much has changed.
A Pile of Quashed Quotatoes
Australian Literary Review, 2 Jun 2010
A reading group devoted to Finnegans Wake probably seems like the height of eccentricity but it’s not as weird as you might think.
My mother and Mick
Australian Literary Review, 1 Sep 2010
A personal essay about Australian writer Randolph Stow who died on May 29th, 2010.
Narcissistic Navel Gazing
The Australian, 5 Mar 2008
Ruminative, intimate, reflective why does the personal essay cause such angst for Australians?
You do not have the right to die
The Age, 11 May 2009
When most of the world is fighting to live, is suicide the ultimate act of selfishness?
Middle-age a lust cause for women hit by desire
Sydney Morning Herald, 31 Oct 2007
My observations are that women approaching 50 swoon just as easily at the sight of a fit male chest or a sweaty bicep as a middle-aged man might over a girl in a bikini. It’s just that women are better at concealing their lust.