Our favourite little Aussie zine, PINHOLE is releasing Volume 3 and calling for submissions.

They say:

“We’re going fishing for submissions and want to ask; ‘what are you chasing?’ Is it love? Money? The idealistic dream lifestyle? What captures your  imagination? What are you suddenly aware of? What moves or inspires you? Makes  you think twice or even look back in anger?

We present ‘The Catch’ – The devil is in the details.

Often referring to a catch or mysterious elements hidden in the  details. You can have it all, but you better read the fine print. We explore the  dark side of a good thing and vice versa. So what is the catch for you?

We’d like to invite you to unleash your creative mind and show us your best  artistic interpretation of ‘The Catch’ by adding your words, visuals, tales and  stories to our Volume 3 for your chance to have your work printed in our  zine.

Max four A5 pages for each submission. Words 500-1500 – max | Images,  illustrations and all visuals to be sent in high res 300dpi for print  purposes.”

Get your creative thinking caps on and submit!

Submissions for Volume 3  close end of March 2013

Pinhole Collective www.pinhole.co Follow us @pinhole_3

While Sydney braced itself for the heatwave of a century, Lora-Dana DiRuffio (still hungover from the season’s revelries) and Mavis Daze (also hungover… scrap that, still drunk) were trying to procure the last known, legal cheese-on-a-stick in the Eastern Suburbs.

“How could this essential food stuff be outlawed? Do these people have no hearts?” cried Lora-Dana as she furiously typed search terms such as ‘Cheese-on-stick Bondi’ ‘specialty deep-fried foods’ into her iPad.

“Probably not,” Mav replied, “Those lobbyists who pushed the ban through are probably all sitting on waiting lists for transplants. It’s always those who have indulged the most who deny rest of us” she opined through a fug of cigarette smoke.

“But I’m dying, Mav, ddddyyyyyyyyiiiiinnnnngg.” Lora-Dana threw down the handful of Panadeine Osteo capsules passed to her. “You know that nothing soothes my New Year’s hangover but cheese-on-a-stick. Hey, you don’t suppose you could call that Easter Show carnie you once had that little encounter behind the Gravitron with?”

“Don’t even think of it, LD.”

“Goddammit.” She slumped into her antelope kid lounge and squinted from behind her over-sized Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses at the sparkling panorama of sea before them. “Life is putrid,” she sobbed.

Mavis took pity on her fragile friend and proposed an activity that she promised would be such a lark that the mother of all headaches would be forgotten. She suggested they begin 2013 wisely, by listing the most important lessons they had learnt over the silly season.

With some coaxing, Lora-Dana produced the list, thus,

USEFUL THINGS THE HOLIDAY SEASON HAS TAUGHT US

1. In which, party shots are not for you. ‘Tis not the season to become the only idiot you know who actually tried a vodka eyeball but missed your eye, only to end up with an unsavoury ear infection.
2. Whereby, you are not a bad person if you hate the Moonlight Cinema. You might be, though, if you attend Moonlight Cinema sessions a little on the sloshy side and locate the projector so that you can contribute to the onscreen action with your shadow puppetry.
3. In which drunk dialling should be avoided at all costs when you are too blind to correctly distinguish between ‘Sexy Jake’, ‘Study Jake’ and ‘Cousin Jake’
4.  Beware the rum pig. Dark spirits will bring out the dark spirit.
5. Whereby, inebriated eBay shopping will yield surprise packages over the Christmas season. Being your own eSanta can be cause for confusion in the bright day of sobriety. 42 cases of Mylanta could be seen as excessive, along with the numerous vintage wedding dresses, however acquiring enough abmachines to fill a gym might come in handy for next year’s corporate (re)gifting. As for acquiring someone’s virginity, only to discover that it was your own, posted the night before after the work Christmas party failed to yield any successful sexual conquests …victimless crime.

On a whim John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru, asked the twittersphere and facebookland what they thought were the ‘must read’ Australian novels. In a matter of hours hundreds of titles were suggested. He then made a long list of these offerings and asked the world to vote for their favourites. A fellow on twitter suggested he allow one title per author, to ensure the list wasn’t swamped by Wintons, Careys, McCulloughs and Courtenays. The title which received the most votes would be that author’s single listing. Purcell thought this a good idea. (Tim Winton would have swallowed up the Top Ten otherwise. Good on ya, Timmo.)

So here it is, the Top 10. Let us know what you think? Do you agree or have we missed a great Australian novel? Click here for the full list.

1.Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
2. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
3. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
4. Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner
5. My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
6. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
7. My Brother Jack – by George Johnston
8. The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
9. The Harp in the South by Ruth Park
10. The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead

The Refugee Art Project presents fear+hope, a group exhibition by asylum seekers who live within Australian detention centres. Our friends at Design Federation caught up with Safdar Ahmed & Anton Pulvirenti to ask them about this exhibition that kicks off at the Mori Gallery in Sydney on Monday, 20th June 2011. Here is a snippet of what they had to say!

How did the Refugee Art Project begin?

Safdar: Anton and I both come from a fine arts background. We met and became friends at art school, in the year after I had finished high school, and have always shared a passion for talking and thinking about art. Last year I was speaking to a friend (the co-founder of this project, Dr Omid Tofighian) about refugee issues and it then occurred to us that an art exhibition might be a great vehicle for understanding the position of refugees in Australia. We started to visit the Villawood detention centre for art classes shortly thereafter, and Anton soon joined us to assume a teaching role.

Anton: My involvement began with an invitation from Safdar to join the project. As a long time friend, he was well acquainted with my art practice. He was also aware of the thesis I am completing at The Sydney College of the Arts on my grandfather’s internment at Loveday camp during the Second World War in South Australia. He thought that going inside Villawood would help me shed light on my grandfather’s experience in Loveday of which little is known.

How did you meet artists inside the Villawood detention centre and who are they?

Anton: Safdar had already met some artists. I knew no-one on my first visit. I sat simply sat down, commenced a portrait, and soon made new friends! The artists are predominantly from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq. They have all escaped some form of religious or political persecution.

Read the rest of the interview here.

What: The Refugee Art Project – Fear & Hope
Where: The Mori Gallery
168 Day Street, Sydney (5 mins from Town Hall)
When: 22 June – 8 July 2011
Open Tuesday, Thursday – Sunday, 11am – 5pm
Late night Wednesday, 11am  – 8pm
Cost: Free

The 2011 Sydney Writers’ Festival proudly presents some of the world’s finest poets, novelists and authors of literary nonfiction, including 2010 Man Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson; Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours and By Nightfall, Michael Cunningham; the acclaimed David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet) and Aminatta Forna (The Memory of Love), as well as internationally renowned Australians Peter Robb, Kim Scott, Markus Zusak, Sonya Hartnett and John Tranter.’ Read more here.

It promises to be a powerful and engaging lineup. Catch one of the many events, the festival is running now & finishes on the 22nd May 2011.

From Australia’s first MasterChef comes the Pink Ribbon Edition of the phenomenal bestseller, Our Family Table. Support Breast Cancer research ith $1 from every copy sold going to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Our Family Table is a mouth-watering collection of recipes from Julie and her family and features a blank chapter at the back for you to add the recipes from your own family’s table.

The mother from the Central Coast that captured the heart of Australia brings you home cooking at its finest. From breakfast to dinner parties, Christmas to camping, sweet treats to preserves – this book is set to become a permanent fi xture on your cookbook stand.

Also featuring a foreword by Margaret Fulton. You can get your hands on a copy in May!

Some of Australia’s best known writers compete with a number of talented first time authors in an intriguing and eclectic shortlist for the 2011 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the nation’s oldest, richest and most prestigious State literary awards.

Finalists this year include popular comedian Anh Do; novelist and screenwriter Melina Marchetta; academic, poet and translator Ouyang Yu; two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey and former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. For more than 30 years, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards have honoured hundreds of established and emerging novelists, playwrights, poets, scriptwriters, social commentators and writers of children and young people’s fiction.

Please note that this year the People’s Choice Award, which gives readers an opportunity to vote for their favourite shortlisted book in the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, will be open for the first time to all Australians (in previous years only NSW residents were eligible to vote).  Voting is via the website: http://www.pla.nsw.gov.au/  There are great prizes to be won by voting.

2011’s shortlisted writers were selected from more than 570 nominations across 10 categories. Prizes of up to $315,000 will be presented at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards dinner on 16 May, the first celebratory event of the 2011 Sydney Writers’ Festival (16-22 May).

For more details on shortlisted individuals, please visit http://www.pla.nsw.gov.au.

Media enquiries please contact: April Murdoch, Publicist; mob: 0434 581 944 & email: aprilmurdochmedia {at} yahoo.com(.)au

The Big Issue is a fortnightly, independent magazine, which is sold on the streets around Australia. It’s a high-quality, general interest publication that features arts and entertainment, humorous columns, current affairs, lifestyle, personal experiences and there own particular brand of irreverence. The editorial team is headed by Walkley Award-winning journalist and author Alan Attwood.

The magazine is sold by authorised vendors on the streets of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and regional Victoria. Vendors come from a range of backgrounds including mental illness, homelessness, long-term unemployment, intellectual and physical disability, drug and alcohol dependency, family breakdown and others suffering from social isolation, such as refugees.

Get onboard & buy an issue, it’s an awesome read!

The State Library of Western Australia announces the Call for Entries for the 2010 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards including a new category, the Digital Narrative Award.

Entry is open to books, scripts and digital narrative which have been published/produced between 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2010. To be eligible authors must be citizens or permanent residents of Australia or whose work has Australia as its primary focus. The closing date for entries is 5pm Monday 31 January 2011.

There are 8 categories in the Awards: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Children’s Book, Writing for Young Adults, Poetry, Scripts, State Library of Western Australia West Australian History Award and the new Digital Narrative Award which recognises the use of new media in storytelling/writing. An additional Premier’s Prize of $25,000 is presented to the overall winner, chosen from the category winners.

Prize money is made available by the Western Australian Government. The West Australian History Award is sponsored by the State Library of Western Australia. Short listed entries will be announced in June 2011.

fluoro are giving away yearly subscriptions to four lucky Two Flat White and Design Federation visitors to celebrate the release of fluoro8 which hits stores around Australia late December 2010. To enter click here.

Read all about the fluoro yearly subscriptions comp»